“Increasingly, people are accessing information from the internet as their first primary source. So instead of people going and buying newspapers, they log onto the internet. But how credible is this information?” asks Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Dr Edward Spence, senior lecturer in moral philosophy and applied and professional ethics in the School of Communication.

 

Dr Spence has been awarded a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Twente at Enschede in the eastern Netherlands. As well as working at the Centre for the Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Science, Dr Spence will join with other researchers in the new Centre of Excellence for Ethics and Technology (CEFET), a collaboration between the Universities of Twente, Delft and Eindhoven, with its headquarters in the capital, The Hague.

 

CEFET is funded by the Dutch government and will bring together some 30 researchers in the field of ethics of technology. Dr Spence will undertake research into “ethics and values of information in the new media”.

 

According to Dr Spence, the rise and rise of the digital New Media has democratised communication and the way people access and disseminate information.

 

“Where once broadsheet newspapers, internet and TV were very separate and distinct parts of the media, they now seem to be converging. Even traditional journalists are using blogs to communicate their ideas, because they are free to express their own views and opinions on certain issues. So I’ll be looking at the epistemology and ethics of information as it is expressed, mediated, disseminated and processed in the digital media.”

 

Dr Spence says the so-called Old Media often have safeguards in place which make them credible, “there are filters so people at least trust that what they read though the newspapers, or hear on Radio National or SBS TV is likely to be true. Is that the case with the information we access from the internet? Some sites we know are more credible than others, but most people do not have access to that information.”

 

Dr Spence, who is also a Senior Research Fellow at CSU’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), admits the appointment is a very prestigious one. “It is actually. I was told there were 100 applicants from around the world and from these 100 applicants they short listed seven, and from those they offered two positions.”

 

Dr Spence is taking three years’ leave of absence from the beginning of September but will retain his tenured position at CSU and senior fellowship at CAPPE.