What are students being taught about ethics in public speaking textbooks?

Judy C. Pearson, Jeffrey T. Child, Jody L. Mattern, David H. Kahl

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Current conceptions of communication and ethics were investigated in the top ten public speaking textbooks in the communication discipline. Content analysis was used to examine eight ethical topic areas within each textbook. Results indicate the textbooks by Lucas, Jaffe, Beebe and Beebe, and Brydon and Scott provide the most overall coverage to ethics. In addition, plagiarism, ethnical listening, honesty, and ethical research are discussed most frequently while freedom of speech, hate words, and codes of ethics are least discussed among the top ten selling public speaking books. Each author references different philosophers, defines ethics, and describes the consequences of cheating in diverse ways. The implications of how ethics is not given the same amount of space in the top ten best-selling public speaking textbooks are discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)507-521
Number of pages15
JournalCommunication Quarterly
Volume54
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2006

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Communication

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