Potter Box Essay Tackles Baby Abandonment In Malaysia.

1.You are required to compile 3 news articles from 3 different media outlets (from local or international news providers) which highlight the same current issue/theme in Malaysian from the 1st January of 2018 until the 1st September of 2018.

2.You should describe the articles accordingly to the ethical concern of how news articles have been delivered using the Potter Box of Reasoning.

3.The outcomes of this assignment should be explained from the perspective of mass communications (news context) by utilizing the Potter Box of Reasoning model.

Case Study of Baby Abandonment in Malaysia

The incident of infant and fetus dumping is being commonly reported in the media across several regions of Malaysia for the past few years and in these aspect immediate actions required to be taken for tackling the preventive issues related to baby abandonment.  The governing bodies of Malaysia need to take proper initiative for tackling the issues regarding baby abandonment. This report is going to describe the articles thoroughly by considering the ethical concern regarding how the news articles are being delivered with the help of Potter Box of Reasoning. In the research, it has been found that Potter Box of Reasoning has been introduced by Ralph Potter and it is regarded as the tool for making any kind of ethical decisions in an effective manner. Potter Box of Reasoning Involves four individual steps which include identifying the issues at play related to the situation,  identification of values that are required to be implemented,  recognition of guiding principles, considering loyalties which are required to be employed. Thus, it can be said that safety precautions need to be taken for overcoming these sorts of issues regarding baby abandonment.

According to the situation article, it has been found that a newborn baby girl has been found abandoned inside a paper bag which was kept hanging in one side of a car that was parked exactly beside Ashby Flats on Jalan Hospital (Sukor et al., 2015). In the meantime a man of 20 years old who was the resident of that flat found a baby crying at about 12:30 a.m. and thereby he had traced the sound of a baby girl from a paper bag. After taking out the newborn baby from the paper bag he has found that the umbilical cord of that baby is still attached. Later on, the baby was sent to Raja Permaisuri Bainun hospital for her for the checkup (Majid et al., 2016). After analyzing the overall situation It can be said that the implementation of Potter Box of Reasoning needs to be done for making the ethical decision related to the issue.

Potter Box of Reasoning is going to help the decision maker for making good decisions after following the four quadrants of Potter Box. The communication professionals mostly uses which kind of model which is totally dependent on the ethical dilemmas result that offers due to conflicts  which generate between the values that are possessed  by human beings,  the principles that are being used by human beings for making decisions,  and the duties that need to be done for others (Ndempavali & Justus, 2016). The first quadrant of the Potter Box of Reasoning is about defining the situation which is also known to be facts.  This particular step involves the collection of information that is available regarding the situation and what is the present condition of the situation. In this case study, it can be seen that a newborn baby was found abandoned and was hanged on the side mirror of a car. The situation was noticed by a 20-year-old man and he had found the child crying from a plastic bag (Mohd & Alkali, 2015).

Potter Box of Reasoning for Ethical Decision Making

The second quadrant of the Potter Box of Reasoning is known to be valued.  Values are regarded as the aspects which are considered to be essential for a person in a personal manner. It helps in finding that what is right and what is wrong.  For example, if an individual gives value to both privacy and truth, then that person is likely to give up some truth for attempting the preservation of the privacy of an individual. Values are supposed to be essential for defending or rationalizing the behavior of an individual.  After getting into some conclusion an individual shall not go against the values. Thus, in this case, it has been found that the 20-year-old man has focused on his values and for that reason after hearing the sound of a newborn baby crying he immediately took the initiative for recovering that child from the danger.  In this situation, that man did a great job of saving that newborn baby from dying and by which his good behavior has been tracked.  

The third quadrant of Potter Box of Reasoning is known to be a principle. According to the research, it has been found that the principle helps in thinking about which is regarded as good for human being. In common words, we can say that principles are regarded as the ethical philosophy or any kind of ethical reasoning (Lee, 2015). Based on this philosophy this particular case can be analyzed and the ethical issues related to the case can be solved easily. Dumping a newborn baby is not regarded as an ethical activity and it is against the law as well as humanity.  According to the laws of philosophy, it can be said that the newborn babies are regarded as the gift of God and they shall be treated with proper care. Parents need to be much aware of the newborn babies but in this particular aspect, it can be seen that a newborn baby was placed in a plastic bag and was hanged on the rearview mirror of a car which is unethical and against the principle of Potter Box of Reasoning.

 The fourth quadrant of Potter Box of Reasoning is called loyalties. This factor helps in determining that towards whom a person need to be loyal based on the present situation. In the situation, it has been found that the 20 years old man was loyal towards the newborn baby where her own parents need to be must loyal to their own child (Christians et al., 2015). Thus, it has been found that loyalty comes from within and people need to fight against the unethical activities thereby helping others to become ethical.

Increasing Instances of Baby Dumping in Malaysia

After applying the Potter Box of Reasoning within the three articles it has been analyzed that for making any kind of ethical decision it is always necessary to follow this model. For overcoming any sort of ethical dilemma this Potter Box of Reasoning is the best method (Franquet-Santos-Silva & Ventura-Morujão, 2017).

Conclusion 

After the analysis of the overall research, it can be concluded that Malaysia is confronting a major issue with respect to on child dumping which getting more incessant and causes a ton of consideration. This social issue seems each day in the daily paper and broad communications. From the time of January until July 2010, open was stunned, horrified, terrified by the expanding revealed instances of surrendered babies, some of whom were discovered dead. This episode in a roundabout way showed that something isn't right in our general public. The researchers have also analyzed that infant dumping isn't just barely dumping new-conceived babies yet, in addition, alludes to disposing of or taking off alone, for a broadened timeframe, a kid more youthful than a year of age in an open or private setting with the plan to discard the kid. The more regrettable circumstance of this issue likewise can be seen when a young lady conceives an offspring in a school washroom during the evening at that point tosses the infant into the dustbin or in the latrine bowl, additionally when an infant flung in the chicken coop, a child swaddled in daily papers left squalling by a fly-plagued dustbin, an infant relinquished under the cruel sun pummeling on a wet rice field, an infant stuffed into a cupboard cabinet, an infant left on the doorsteps of individuals' home with notes or in a mosque. It is so humiliating, pitiful and most exceedingly bad situation that occurred in our general public. Keeping in mind the end goal to adapt to this child dumping cases, the government should turn out with a few strategies and projects. As a matter of first importance, the government may consolidate sex instruction in school educational programs as a component of an all-encompassing way to deal with handle child dumping cases. This methodology is required with a specific end goal to give mindfulness and a superior comprehension of the conceptive framework and wellbeing at the school level. Other than that, the government additionally can rebuild or include the syllabus in a specific subject, for example, "Pendidikan Islam" or "Pendidikan Moral" so as to make mindfulness and featured the results of social issues like free sex and child dumping. The government likewise ought to advance Islam as a lifestyle particularly to the Muslim youth as should be obvious these days; the vast majority of the general population who associated with infant dumping were Muslims. Islamic researchers and Ulama' must assume this liability to disclose to the network about Islam. Be that as it may, it is vital for the religious people to utilize the reasonable technique as per the objective gathering in playing out this assignment. The government likewise can bring the Ulama' or others religious individual from other religion to give a discussion to the adolescents in view of their conviction particularly when there is a program for young people and also when there is a national battle to control with this sort of social issue.

References

Christians, C. G., Richardson, K. B., Fackler, M., Kreshel, P., & Woods, R. H. (2015). Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning, CourseSmart eTextbook. Routledge.

Franquet-Santos-Silva, M., & Ventura-Morujão, C. A. (2017). THE POTTER BOX MODEL OF MORAL REASONING. El Profesional de la información, 26(2).

Lee, S. T. (2015). Ethics Theory and Application in Public Relations, Advertising, and Health Communication. Persuasion Ethics Today, 224.

Majid, A., Tagaranao, M. S., Mohd Safian, Y. H., & binti Termizi, M. (2016). Towards Solving Baby Dumping In Malaysia By Using An Alternative: Baby Hatch.

Mohd, A., & Alkali, A. U. (2015). The crime of Baby Dumping: A Review of Islamic, Malaysian and Nigerian Laws. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 23.

Ndempavali, S., & Justus, A. H. (2016). A conceptual framework as basis for the development of a psychosocial educational programme to facilitate the reintegration of incarcerated women who had dumped babies and/or committed infanticide.

Sukor, N. M., Sawai, R. P., Salleh, M. M. M., Ab Halim, M. A., Baharuddin, D. F., & Sawai, J. P. (2015). Management of Baby Dumping in Malaysia: A Qualitative Study.