The ethical dimensions of a new media age: a study in contemporary responsibility

Existing theoretical literature on new media predominantly focuses upon political issues. Whilst this is merited it is at the expense of ethical theoretical understandings of the social milieu we inhabit. As our environment becomes suffused with new media and is in turn shaped by them we require contributions that would seek to understand the impact this has on moral responsibility and moral action. The doctoral research collected here is motivated by the idea that ethical theory must be challenged and updated by developments in society lest we lack the resources to understand contemporary moral life. As such, the approach taken is to produce a work of ethical theory that is informed by observation of the empirical conditions of life in a new media age. The case studies explored within are not unknown to existing literature but the ethical significance of them has yet to be sufficiently articulated. So through research into avatar interaction, media events, networked urban spaces, online architectures, and surveillant softwares, I will outline an empirically driven ethical theory of how moral responsibility and moral action operate within online environments and within environments of ubiquitous new media. This involves, at the same time, critically examining these developments in order to present moral problems that existing ethical theories – written without consideration of such technological advances – would omit. This survey of contemporary moral responsibility, of how responsibility is initiated and responded to, represents an original contribution to an understanding of ethics in a new media age.