Chapter 36 Exercises: Ethical Persuasion and Responsible Communication

Exercise 36.1 — Applying the Five Criteria (Individual, ~60 minutes)

Select a real persuasive communication from the following categories (choose one): - A recent public health campaign (anti-obesity, pro-vaccination, anti-smoking, etc.) - A political advertisement from any major recent election - A nonprofit advocacy campaign (environmental, human rights, social justice, etc.) - A corporate social responsibility communication ("purpose-driven advertising")

Apply each of the five ethical persuasion criteria from Section 36.1 to the communication you have selected. For each criterion, assess whether the communication meets, partially meets, or fails the standard, and provide specific evidence for your assessment.

Deliverable: A written analysis of 800–1,000 words. Your analysis should conclude with an overall ethical assessment and, if the communication falls short on any criteria, a brief proposal for how it could be revised to better meet the standard without sacrificing its persuasive goals.

Reflection question: Did applying the criteria change your assessment of the communication? Were there cases where you had previously found the communication persuasive and effective, but the criteria revealed ethical problems? What does that tell you about the relationship between effectiveness and ethics?

Exercise 36.2 — Fear Appeal Redesign (Individual or Pairs, ~90 minutes)

Part A: Find an example of a fear appeal in public health communication that you assess as ethically problematic (candidates from history include D.A.R.E. anti-drug campaigns, some early HIV/AIDS campaigns, anti-drug "this is your brain on drugs" advertising, and anti-obesity campaigns targeting specific foods). Using the Extended Parallel Process Model framework from Section 36.2, identify specifically what makes it ethically problematic: Is the threat exaggerated? Is the fear disproportionate? Is there an inadequate efficacy response? Does it produce stigma or defensive responses rather than protective behavior?

Part B: Redesign the campaign. Keeping the core public health goal identical, revise the message to meet all five ethical criteria from 36.1 and to satisfy the four conditions for ethical fear appeals from 36.2. Write the copy for two specific campaign elements (e.g., a thirty-second script and a print ad) that embody your redesign.

Part C: Compare your redesign to the original. What did you have to sacrifice to make it ethical? What, if anything, did you gain? On balance, do you think your redesign would be more or less effective than the original?

Exercise 36.3 — The Narrative Test (Pairs, ~45 minutes)

Below are three short narrative vignettes. For each one, apply the "narrative fidelity" test from Section 36.3 and assess whether the narrative illustrates accurate information or manufactures a false emotional context.

Vignette A: An anti-immigration advertisement features a family whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver who was also an undocumented immigrant. The advertisement does not mention overall crime rates. The specific case is factually accurate.

Vignette B: A climate change public awareness campaign follows a Bangladeshi farmer whose coastal land has been flooded three times in five years due to rising sea levels. The campaign accurately attributes the increased flooding to climate change and presents peer-reviewed statistics about projected flood risk for coastal regions in South Asia.

Vignette C: A drug company advertisement for a prescription medication features a woman who describes how the medication allowed her to return to her normal life. The fine print lists twelve potential side effects. The woman's account is true. The medication has a 12% rate of serious side effects and a clinical trial showed it outperformed placebo by 7 percentage points.

For each vignette: (1) Apply the narrative fidelity test. (2) Identify any specific elements that raise ethical concerns about narrative use. (3) Assess whether the narrative illustrates or distorts the underlying evidence.

After completing the exercise, discuss: Is there a bright line between illustration and distortion, or is it a continuum? Who decides where the line falls?

Exercise 36.4 — Institutional Ethics Audit (Group of 3–4, ~2 hours)

Choose one of the following types of communication institutions: - A national news organization - A public health agency (federal or state) - A nonprofit advocacy organization - A fact-checking organization - A government public information office

Your task: Conduct an ethics audit of that institution's publicly documented communication standards.

Step 1: Identify any published ethics codes, editorial guidelines, communication standards, or transparency disclosures that the institution maintains.

Step 2: Apply the criteria from 36.13 (the Action Checklist) to assess how fully the institution's published standards address each category.

Step 3: Look for a recent specific communication by that institution (a news report, a public health notice, an advocacy campaign, etc.) and assess whether the actual communication appears to meet the institution's own published standards.

Step 4: Identify the strongest and weakest points in the institution's ethical framework. What enforcement mechanisms, if any, exist for violations? What gaps in the standards could be exploited without technically violating them?

Deliverable: A group memo of 1,000–1,500 words, structured as a professional ethics audit report with findings and recommendations.

Exercise 36.5 — Debate Preparation (Group, in-class)

The Chapter 36 Debate Framework presents two positions on whether ethical persuasion is possible at scale in the current information environment. Prepare for a structured in-class debate.

Preparation: - Your instructor will assign each student to either Position A or Position B, regardless of their personal views. - Prepare a three-minute opening statement for your assigned position. - Prepare responses to the two strongest arguments for the opposing position. - Identify at least two specific examples from the course material (from any chapter) that support your assigned position.

In-class format (suggested): - Opening statements: 3 minutes each side - Cross-examination: 5 minutes each side (the opposing team questions the presenter) - Rebuttal: 2 minutes each side - Floor questions: 10 minutes - Closing statements: 2 minutes each side - Debrief: What changed your mind, if anything? What argument was strongest on each side?

Post-debate reflection (individual, written): After the debate, write a 400–500 word response to this question: After hearing both sides, what is your position? If you argued for a position you disagree with, was there anything in preparing or presenting it that changed your thinking?

Exercise 36.6 — The SPJ Code Analysis (Individual, ~60 minutes)

Read the full text of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics (2014), available at spj.org. (This is not long — approximately 800 words.)

Then answer the following questions:

1. The code lists four principles in order: Seek Truth and Report It; Minimize Harm; Act Independently; Be Accountable and Transparent. Does the order imply a priority ranking? What happens when these principles conflict? (Give a specific example of a real or hypothetical journalistic situation where two of these principles would point in different directions.)

2. The code uses the language of virtue throughout — "courageous," "honest," "compassionate" — rather than the language of rules. What theory of ethics does this reflect? What does it assume about how journalists make decisions?

3. The code has no enforcement mechanism. Does that make it useless, or does it serve other functions? What functions? Be specific.

4. Compare one provision of the SPJ Code to the equivalent provision in the IFCN Code of Principles (reviewed in Chapter 32). What is the same and what is different? Does the difference reflect a different theory of ethics, a different professional context, or both?

5. Write one additional provision you would add to the SPJ Code — a provision you believe is missing that would improve the code as a guide to ethical journalism. Explain why it is missing and what it would require.

Exercise 36.7 — Responsible Communication Commitment Statement (Individual, ~90 minutes)

This exercise is the preliminary draft of the Responsible Communication Commitment Statement required for your Inoculation Campaign Final Brief.

Write a personal statement of 500–750 words addressing:

1. What ethical principles will guide your communication practice? Be specific — reference the frameworks from this chapter and from earlier in the course, but also explain in your own words why these principles matter to you personally.

2. In the specific professional context you anticipate entering (journalism, public relations, public health, education, advocacy, policy, or another field), what specific pressures or temptations are most likely to challenge those principles? Be honest — this requires actually imagining the situations you might face, not the abstract ones.

3. What would you do if you found yourself in a situation like the one Webb described — where you could see clearly that the ethical thing to do was costly, and the unethical thing was easier and more professionally advantageous?

4. What does "the institution of reliable truth-telling" (Sophia's phrase from the closing section) mean for your specific professional context?

This statement will be revised and incorporated into your Final Brief. Write it as a genuine document, not as an academic exercise. First-person voice is not only permitted here — it is required.

Progressive Project Checkpoint

Chapter 36 is the capstone chapter for your Inoculation Campaign. Complete Section 36.14's Final Brief format in full.

Before submitting, confirm that your Final Brief:

• [ ] Draws on all community and propaganda environment analysis from Parts 2–3
• [ ] Incorporates your domain analysis from Part 5
• [ ] Includes complete inoculation message designs from Ch.33 (with forewarning, refutational preemption, counter-argument, and efficacy frame for each targeted technique)
• [ ] Has completed the full 20-question ethical checklist from Ch.36 for your core campaign messages
• [ ] Addresses the policy dimension identified in Ch.35
• [ ] Contains a genuine Responsible Communication Commitment Statement of at least 500 words

Final Brief due date: As specified by your instructor. Presentations will be scheduled for Part 7 sessions.

Reflection Questions for Class Discussion

1. Webb describes leaving political communications because he couldn't close the gap between who he was at work and who he wanted to be. What gap does he mean, exactly? Is that gap always clear to the person experiencing it, or can it be invisible for a long time?

2. Sophia says that her father's most important contribution is not any individual story but the institution of reliable truth-telling — "being the person in the community who is going to keep being honest regardless of what it costs." Is this a realistic goal for a working journalist or communicator? What makes it easier or harder to sustain?

3. The chapter argues that ethical persuasion can be effective, but acknowledges that it faces structural disadvantages in the current information environment. Is this acknowledgment an honest account of the limits of ethics, or is it a rationalization for accepting those limits? Is there a version of this argument that you should not accept?

4. Tariq's final comment to Webb — "The ethical thing and the effective thing aren't always the same. But the ethical thing is what makes you worth listening to" — is a claim about the relationship between ethics and credibility. Do you agree? Are there contexts where it is false?

5. The checklist in 36.13 has twenty questions. A skilled communicator could, in principle, satisfy every question while still producing communication that feels manipulative or dishonest. Does that reveal a limit of the checklist approach? If so, what does it reveal about what ethics requires that no checklist can capture?