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LEC721S - LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN COMMUNICATION - 2ND OPP - DECEMBER 2025 |
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nAm I BIA un IVERSITY
OF SCIEnCE Ano TECHnOLOGY
FACULTY OF COMMERCE, HUMAN SCIENCES AND EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGES
QUALIFICATION : BACHELOR OF COMMUNICATION
QUALIFICATION CODE: 07BCMM
LEVEL: 7
COURSE CODE: LEC 721S
SESSION: NOVEMBER/DECEMBER, 2025
DURATION: THREE HOURS
COURSE : LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN
COMMUNICATION
PAPER: (THEORY)
MARKS: 100
SUPPLEMENTARY/SECOND OPPORTUNITY QUESTION PAPER
EXAMINER(S) Dr C PEEL
MODERATOR: Ms. EMILY M. BROWN
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Answe r THREE questions and note that Question 1 is compulsory.
2. Read all the questions carefully before answe ring them .
3. Indicate whether you are a FT, PT, or DE student.
4. Write legibly. The examiner shall not award marks for answers he
cannot read .
THIS EXAMINATION QUESTION PAPER CONSISTS OF _5_ PAGES (Including th is front page)
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QUESTION 1
(Compulsory)
50 MARKS
Attached to this question paper (see Appendix 1) is a repo rt about a news crew from
Citizen TV in Kenya filming a woman about to give birth on the street, after she was
turned away from a hospital during a nationwide strike by health workers. Analyse the
circumstances of the case by reading and grasping the details attached, before
responding in full to the following questions:
(a) What were the ethical choices available to the reporter and news crew? (3 marks).
(b) If you were the reporter on the scene, and were influenced by Francis Kasoma ' s
principles of Afri-Ethics, explain whether or not your response to the pregnant
woman's predicament might have been different from the actions of the Citizen TV
news crew ........................................................................ ............... ............ ..... .. .. (17 marks).
(c) Which ethical principles did the Citizen TV news crew ultimately use: virtue ethics,
util itarian ethics, or duty ethics? Give elaborate reasons to support your
categorisation and cite the scholar(s) who originated the principle(s) you believe the
news crew to have chosen .... .......................... ..................... ..................... ......... (30 marks).
QUESTION 2
25 MARKS
Create a Code of Conduct and Ethics for online content contributors that ensures
discip line, fairness, and respect in pursuing the truth and serving the public needs for
information, education and entertainment.
QUESTION 3
25 MARKS
In his determination of a defamation lawsuit brought by the former First Lady of
Namibia against an opposition politician (Geingos v Hishoono), a Windhoek High Court
judge, Justice Sibeya, cited Article 8 of the Namibian Constitution, which states that
"The dignity of all persons shall be inviolable ...".
The judge reaffirmed that "The Constitution is the law which all other laws, common
law and statutory laws, must conform to. The Constitution is, therefore, the point of
departure in a quest to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms" (sub-section 44,
Geingos v Hishoono). Justice Sibeya concluded that :
"It follows from the above Constitutional provision that ... where one's dignity is
violated through defamatory statements, the protection provided in the Constitution
cannot be sidestepped. The Constitution, in my view, is the starting point to enforce
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the guarantee provided for therein, including the guarantee that human dignity shall
be inviolable. Damages sustained as a result of the violation of human dignity,
including damages arising from defamation, may be awarded to the injured party"
(sub-section 45, Geingos v Hishoono).
(a}What material factors in the defendant's {Hishoono's) content and actions did the
court find to have injured the former First Lady's dignity............................... {5 marks)
(b}The Constitution is a country's Supreme Law. Explain in your own words how
Justice Sibeya's judgement underlines this fact. Explain also how you understand the
supreme law to relate to other categories of law in the land. Name and describe
those other law categories ... ............ ... ................ ........... .................. ...... ......... ...(10 marks)
(c) Identify f ive elements of defamation which would lead to a lawsuit's success, and
explain how these elements relate to the findings of the court in the Geingos v
Hishoono case ......................................................................................................(10 marks)
QUESTION 4
25 MARKS
Explain the difference between laws passed by parliament and ethical standards of
conduct in effect at institutions or in our personal lives.
QUESTION 5
25 MARKS
With reference to legal and ethical protections of privacy,
(a}Define invasion of privacy, and illustrate your definition with one example... Smarks
(b) Describe, with relevant examples, four contexts where recording audio or visual
content may constitute an invasion of someone else's privacy................... ........ ... 8 marks
(c) With reference to the rationale behind its passing into law, discuss how the Kobe
Bryant Act in the United States helps to protect the dignity and privacy of injured or
deceased accident or health incident victims .........................................................12 marks
End of Examination Question Paper
Total: 100 marks
Appendix 1 follows/. ....
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By Luke J\\,JuJumla_O n Jan 7, 2017
Ann Mawathe, who reports features for Citizen TV, trailed a woman in labour until she
gave birth to a dead baby.
Share
What was supposed to be a human-interest story on the ongoing strike by nurses
has left Citizen TV reporter Ann Mawathe with egg all over her face. Ms Mawathe,
her camera person and their driver - in search of what would be an award-wining
story - gleefully trailed a pregnant woman who had been turned away from
Pumwani Hospital to St Mary's Hospital in Lang'ata, 10km away, and watched as she
finally delivered but lost the baby.
Kenyans have reacted sharply to the story, aired on Citizen prime time hews on
Friday January 6th, criticizing the reporte r and the TV station of being grossly
inhuman. In the story, Ms Mawathe and her team followed the wom an, who was in
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labour, as she struggled in vain to get medical help at the state-owned Pumwani
Hospital. After she was turned away, the Citizen TV crew pursued her in heavy
Nairobi traffi.c, filming every move as she boarded a rnatatu at Eastleigh area in her
desperate search for a hospital with nur.s. es.
Many TV watchers say the least the Citizen TV crew should have done is be
compassionate to offer transport to the nearest hospital or even, in a show of good
corporate citizenship, book her at the nearest private hospital such as Guru Nanak
MP Shah, Aga Khan or even Nairobi Hospital.
This has raised debate on where to draw the line between being empathetic with a
nevvs subject and media ethics that require journalists not to be involved in the
activities being covered. On a humanitarian ground, however, Kenyans feel Citizen
TV and its crew failed the pregnant woman and her family, as journalism ethics do
not bar journalists from saving lives or averting a disaster. Some journalists, though,
are known to instigate a situation to result into a hot story.
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SEE ALSO>> Citizen TV fires top radio
and TV presenters
Many believe the Citizen TV story ended the way any reporter would have loved:
agony and death that give a story the shocking elements and juicy anecdotes. But
does it have to take such avoidable death for the media house or reporter to be
heard or to stand out for that matter?
Mediarnax example
Here is an excellent example of journalists dumping ethics to save a life. On July 23,
2016, a Mediamax Network van ferrying crew to an assignment at Ewang'an
Primary School stopped to help a worria'n who had just delivered herself of a baby in
Kajiado. Deep in the recesses of Maasai plains, Josephine Ndanin lay writhing in pain.