Anthony Thomas is a graduate student in the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University. He graduated from GW magna cum laude and is completing a Masters in Media and Strategic Communications as part of a combined degree program. Anthony has worked at several strategic communication consulting firms while pursuing his degrees, including Seven Letter and New Heights Communications.
1 ) To what ethical standard should political communication be held? Where should political communication ethics be grounded?
In an ideal world, I believe that political communication should be held to a strict ethical standard, similar to how journalism functions in an ideal world. People working in this field should never lie, never bend the truth in the pursuit of their goals, and always be as egalitarian as possible in their advocacy. In the real world though, I believe that simply never lying is the standard that makes the most sense. No one should be blatantly spreading false information in order to win, as that has eroded our democracy and led us to the status quo. However, we are now engaged in an existential fight to decide the future of our country. With all the concurrent crises exacerbating extremist politics, I believe it to be irresponsible to always “go high.” Simply put, we cannot win if we continue to try to throw the rule book at people who haven’t observed the rules in decades. Therefore, we should always attempt to be as ethical as possible, and never cross the line of misleading the public into believing something that is untrue. However, using every other tool available to us to stop fascism is completely justifiable.
2) Why should someone in political communication behave ethically?
Everyone working in political communication should behave ethically, because not doing so makes you complicit in the erosion of our democratic values. In an age of disinformation and widespread disillusionment amongst American voters, there has rarely been a more important time to uphold ethical standards of truth. Americans nowadays are constantly searching for a trustworthy voice that will not mislead them or present them with heavily distorted information. By providing that, you are not only building trust in our institutions, but also avoiding adding more fuel to the fire. If you need a good example of what I mean by this, just look at the effect of former President Trump’s lack of ethics. Through four years of falsehoods and misdirection, Trump completely shifted the norm of what was okay to say in the political sphere. As a result, we have many copy-cat politicians who are claiming that the 2020 election was rigged, supporting racist conspiracy theories, and openly supporting insurrectionists. This is the direct result of behaving unethically in political communication.
3) Can you give an example of ethical political communication? What can people point to and say “do more of that?”
People tend to think of political communication as only being about electoral campaigns, big speeches, and lobbying pushes. But there is plenty of political communication that occurs outside of those spaces, and I think that communication tends to be a great place to look for an ethical standard. For example, the NAACP is constantly running grassroots campaigns to sway local and national policy. As part of those campaigns, they consistently have to communicate with the public and elected officials. Despite the clear political slant of many of their issue areas, they manage to always be as truthful and informative as possible without distorting information or pretending to know more than they do. Their communication is based not only on moral appeals but also built on decades of research and expertise. They are thorough, concise, and geared towards educating the public about what is going on and why they should care. This, to me, is the purest form of political communication.
4) Can you give an example of an ethical challenge or question you or political communication professionals in your field have faced or are likely to face?
Over the course of my very short career, I have already had to face the question of where I draw the line when it comes to who I’ll work for. The unfortunate truth of our field is that we will sometimes be paid to help people that are not fully aligned with our beliefs. Sometimes, you will have to choose between those people and being unemployed. This raises an ethical question, where you must weigh your own future stability versus the possible impact of helping a campaign that you might not agree with. Maybe your contribution is negligible, or maybe it catapults the campaign to a position of leadership/authority that it could not have achieved without your support. You can never really know the exact outcome. The line will be different for every professional in this field, but it is something that everyone should consider.
5) What advice about ethics do you have for people studying political communication or starting their careers in the field?
The only advice I have is to never forget that no matter how small what you’re doing seems to be, it matters. Many people think that they can discard ethics because their contribution is negligible in the grand scheme of things. This is not true. In my opinion, this attitude is partially to blame for the current state of our society. Everything you do as a political communication professional has a chance of being seen by the public, and communicating unethically only harms our democracy. It doesn’t matter if you see the campaign as unimportant, you never know what impact you could be having on the world in the long run, so you may as well behave ethically.
A great example of this is the GamerGate controversy. At the time of GamerGate, most people thought that it was going to be a one-off, insignificant internet controversy spread by anti-social gamers. Years later, GamerGate is still being used to study how right-wing movements take-off online. No one involved in GamerGate could have guessed that this was going to happen, but it did, and their ridiculous tactics are now used to spread hate on an even wider scale. So always behave ethically to the best of your ability. You never know if your campaign will become a GamerGate, although hopefully you are never aiming for that.