Lawrence Souder

The ethics of scholarly peer review: a review of the literature

This review summarizes the literature of a subset of the published research and commentary on peer review – the ethics of peer review. It attempts to track the various ethical issues that arise among the key participants in peer‐review systems: authors, editors, referees, and readers. These issues include: bias, courtesy, conflict of interest, redundant publication, honesty, transparency, and training. It concludes that debates over such issues as open vs. blind reviews continue unresolved but that new technologies offer some prospects for resolving old issues while they also may create new challenges.

A rhetorical analysis of apologies for scientific misconduct: do they really mean it?

Since published acknowledgements of scientific misconduct are a species of image restoration, common strategies for responding publicly to accusations can be expected: from sincere apologies to ritualistic apologies. This study is a rhetorical examination of these strategies as they are reflected in choices in language: it compares the published retractions and letters of apology with the letters that charge misconduct. The letters are examined for any shifts in language between the charge of misconduct and the response to the charge in order to assess whether the apology was sincere or ritualistic. The results indicate that although most authors’ published acknowledgments of scientific misconduct seem to minimize culpability by means of the strategic use of language, their resulting ritualistic apologies often still satisfy in some way the accusers’ (and thus their community’s) concerns.

Interdependence in Media Economics: Ethical Implications of the Economic Characteristics of News

Citizens need accurate news to govern themselves effectively in a democratic society. Journalists argue editorial independence is necessary to ensure that the integrity of news is not compromised. However, the economic characteristics of news create conflicts between the ideal of independence and the need to pay production costs. This study analyzes those conflicts and the economic tools for resolving them. The analysis suggests ways to balance independence and economic necessity without violating mutual ethical obligations shared by journalists, audiences, and advertisers. Independence, along with a good budget, tends to make for quality journalism. —Michael Wolff, The Man Who Owns the News (p. 225)

The Ethics of Ironic Science in Its Search for Spoof.

The goal of most scientific research published in peer-review journals is to discover and report the truth. However, the research record includes tongue-in-cheek papers written in the conventional form and style of a research paper. Although these papers were intended to be taken ironically, bibliographic database searches show that many have been subsequently cited as valid research, some in prestigious journals. We attempt to understand why so many readers cited such ironic science seriously. We draw from the literature on error propagation in research publication for ways categorize citations. We adopt the concept of irony from the fields of literary and rhetorical criticism to detect, characterize, and analyze the interpretations in the more than 60 published research papers that cite an instance of ironic science. We find a variety of interpretations: some citing authors interpret the research as valid and accept it, some contradict or reject it, and some acknowledge its ironic nature. We conclude that publishing ironic science in a research journal can lead to the same troubles posed by retracted research, and we recommend relevant changes to publication guidelines.

A Free-market Model for Media Ethics: Adam Smith's Looking Glass

This article points out the challenges to current models for media ethics that arise from the private ownership of public media, and it proposes a new model that integrates Adam Smiths free-market theory and his system of moral reasoning. The model creates moral obligations to maintain the integrity of a system for anyone who profits from it. This model renews an appeal for the contemporary notion of transparency and is built on an analogy between the system of the free market for creating wealth and the system of the free press for producing reliable market information.