The media and communication space is an area of conscious and free human action, which gives it an ethical character. For this reason, ethical reflection is not an addition to the social communication and media sciences but an integral part of them, although the very concept of “media ethics” remains a matter of dispute regarding its foundations, the nature of its normativity, and the scope of its validity (Drożdż, 2013, pp. 11-13).

Moreover, contemporary challenges related to media and social communication are being intensified by artificial intelligence. In AI ethics, a phenomenon of “principle proliferation” can be observed - that is, the multiplication of codes and guidelines, at times without their effective implementation. Zhou and Chen (2023) propose shifting attention away from the creation of guidelines or regulations toward, among other things, ethical education in the fields of AI ethics and the ethics of social communication and media. Christian Fuchs (2023), by contrast, focuses primarily on the question of whether the “engineering” model of AI - its technological dimension - can be reconciled at all with the axiological grounding of media and communication ethics.

The very mechanism of communicative agency is also changing. Jan Pleszczyński (2020) shows that traditional “cultural compulsions” are today being displaced by “technological compulsions”; binary algorithms function as mechanisms imposing immediate, unquestionable judgments. Earlier, the same scholar (2012) pointed to the disappearance of a shared journalistic ethos and the need to shift journalism ethics from an ethics of norms toward an ethics of virtue.

Juxtaposing these various diagnoses with proposed understandings of AI ethics raises the question of whether, within an algorithmic environment, an ethics is possible that is reducible neither to codes nor to a purely structural critique devoid of a normative dimension. We will attempt to address this and other questions in the forthcoming issue of our journal.

The Editorial Board of the scholarly quarterly “Kultura – Media – Teologia” [“Culture – Media – Theology”] (eISSN: 2081-8971), published at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, invites submissions of original scholarly articles. Proposed thematic areas include:

• ethical aspects of social communication in the digital age,
• artificial intelligence and responsibility for communicative content,
• truth, disinformation, and fact-checking in contemporary media,
• ethics of political communication and public debate,
• transparency and accountability of AI systems,
• deepfakes and challenges to the credibility of information,
• freedom of speech, hate speech, and the limits of communicative responsibility,
• algorithms, digital platforms, and the ethical management of information,
• ethical challenges of journalism and media communication in the era of generative AI,
• privacy, data protection, and user rights in the digital environment,
• human-AI relations: trust, autonomy, and responsibility,
• ethics of organizational, marketing, and public relations communication using AI,
• values, human dignity, and human rights in the age of AI,
• media, AI, and the future of responsible social communication.

Deadlines: by January 31, 2027 – submission of the article title and a short abstract to: m.laskowska@uksw.edu.pl, by February 15, 2027 – submission of the article through the journal’s editorial panel. Information on formal requirements is available on the website of the journal “Kultura – Media – Teologia.” The guest and academic editors of this issue are: Rev. Dr Jarosław Sobkowiak (UKSW), Rev. Dr Habil. Sławomir Soczyński, Associate Professor (UPJP2), Dr Habil. Małgorzata Laskowska, Associate Professor (UKSW), Dr Maja Bednarska (UPJP2).

In the event of a large number of submissions for a given issue, the editorial board reserves the right to move articles to subsequent issues, in agreement with the author. For any questions regarding the publication - its scope, content, or formal requirements - please feel free to contact us.

References:

Drożdż, M. (2013). Etyczne aspekty mediów integralną częścią nauk o mediach. Studia Medioznawcze, 4(55), 11–23.

Pleszczyński, J. (2012). Niewspółmierność medialna i jej konsekwencje. Nowe Media, 3, 121–141.

Pleszczyński, J. (2015). Światoobrazy, obrazy świata i wizje świata. W I. Hofman i D. Kępa-Figura (red.), Współczesne media. Medialny obraz świata. Zagadnienia teoretyczne (t. 1, s. 61–80). Wydawnictwo UMCS.

Pleszczyński, J. (2020). A priori, racjomorfizm i sprawczość we współczesnej komunikacji. Studia de Cultura, 12(2), 4–17.

Zhou, J., & Chen, F. (2023). AI ethics: from principles to practice. AI & Society, 38, 2693–2703.