Mass Media Journalists and Social Media Ethics in Sri Lanka

Abstract

One of the most important components of broadcasting media professionalism is media ethics. The majority of journalists in Asia have quickly adopted social media in recent years. Professional journalists’ enthusiastic involvement in this technological advancement has expanded the field, affected professional journalism ethics, and caused the public to question whether Sri Lankan mainstream media journalists are trustworthy. This study discussed the findings on how far the emerging of social media affect journalistic ethics observance ’truthfulness, objectivism, balance and fairness and accuracy’ as important resources for journalism in the mass media and how journalists employed social media in their job. To make the data very apparent, two television media firms were chosen using probability and deliberate sampling approaches, and they were given questionnaires to complete in order to investigate how social media affected their professional ethical values. According to this factual viewpoint, it is crucial to make extra efforts to counteract the ongoing effects of social media on mainstream media broadcasting journalism ethical principles. This can be achieved by focusing on internal training to prevent ethical ambiguity, newsroom ethics and codes, and specific social media rules. By taking these proposed proactive actions, major broadcasting media journalists in Sri Lanka may eventually will flourish under the consideration of ethical principles of professionalism. Media self-regulation body is very important for the accountability and flourish of broadcasting landscape. Broadcasting media organizations and journalists should observe principles of Objectivism in their daily activities