The Ethics of Publicly Shaming on Social Media in Business Communication Culture

Questions to Consider

For the critique, you should consider the overall implications of the piece to the role of digital communication culture and apply it to the world of work. You may want to focus your critique of the issue by answering these questions in paragraph format:

1. There is a growing trend of cases where people are being publicly shamed as a result of messages they posted on social media. What are the ethics involved, if any, in this process?

2. What should the appropriate response be from companies when their employees use certain communication channels that may not reflect or represent a company’s best interests?

3. Did the subject of this piece deserve to be fired from her job for use of social media based on the situation described?

4. What steps could be taken to avoid such situations on a professional level? What can/ should employees and employers do to address such issues in the future?

Here is a brief list of the expectations for this assignment:

1. Students are expected to upload their work to the FOL submission folder. All submissions must be in Word (.doc or .docx) or PD files.

2. In this assignment, students should include a brief introductory summary of the piece to provide context, but are expected to provide an objective critique (no use of “I”) of the overall issue raised in the article – see the questions below.

3. Students are expected to write a 600-700 word objective critique.

4. Student’s opening paragraph should indicate the author, the title, and the source of the article and should provide a brief overview/summary of the article. However, in this assignment, the bulk of your response will be a sustained critique of the article’s central issue: what are the limits of social media in business communication culture?

5. Student responses should be in full paragraphs, using proper paragraph style, clear topic sentences, and use of proper grammar, punctuation and mechanics.