Ethical Consciousness on News Media in the Era of Media Convergence of Journalism Undergraduate Students in Bangkok and Metropolitan Area Universities

Abstract

This research aims to compare differences in ethical consciousness levels between participants and non-participants in professional training programs. By using the mulit-stage sampling method, the samples of this study are 400 undergradute students of programs in journalism. The research tool was a questionnaire for measurement of ethical consciousness levels on news media in the media convergence era based on nine hypothetical situations. Colleted data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and technique of inferential statistics deployed by Independent Sample test (t-test). The results found that journalism students had overall moderate level of ethical consciousness on news media in the media convergence era. Professional training programs had a crucial impact on ethical consciousness on news media in the media convergence era at a significant level of 0.05. When considering each aspect, the researcher also found that news reporting is at the highest level, followed by data selection and data evaluation. However, journalism students are aware of ethical consciousness at all stages of news media. The reasons for ethical decisions depend on different situations.