Mapping Ethical Arguments in Journalism: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the potential of a cognitive mapping variant called argument mapping for representing the process of ethical reasoning in journalism. The assumption is that some ethical reasoning journalists do on the job may be observable in the ethical argumentation that takes place among peers in newsroom discussions about ethically problematic situations. After some background on cognitive mapping and the novel aspects of its application in this study, an extended example is presented to illustrate the usefulness and limitations of the argument mapping technique in this context.