“Reflection Paper: Ethics in Communication by Johanssen”

When we hear the word Ethics, it is all about how we will make an appropriate judgement
between our course of action, merely to know what right or wrong thing is. Ethics is not only about
political or social policy, but it is also a part of our personal policies on how we behave and interact
to our audience, ourselves, and the people who we influence too. In communicating a simple
interaction between both parties can affect various ways, in recognizing that we can influence one
another in a positive and negative way. However, when we communicate ethically, we have the
most positive impact upon the society, audience and to ourselves. We simply cannot avoid ethical
questions, because in every action we take or words that we speak raises, the question if it’s helpful
or harmful to the person, audience or to oneself.

Ethical Communication includes ethical judgments that we make in our daily lives about
others, thus it is also difficult to make a decision in communication, especially when we are in a
complicated position, because deciding has a probable effect. To have a great ethical
communication, we must respect the audience's ideas, feelings, and opinions in communication
because it is the ethical way to do. We should also bear in mind that we must use the information
properly by doing so, we should always consider having an accurate information by using
quotations, facts, and precise statistics. It is exceedingly unethical to fabricate information and
plagiarize someone else's work; instead, we should always provide credit and acknowledgement
to the author or sources from whom we took ideas. Lastly always think the right words that is
suitable in the situation, do not be rational because there is always a consequence in every action
we take.