Ethics in Design and Communication: Critical Perspectives

This timely collection brings together critical, analytic, historical, and practical studies to address what ethics means in the practice of design. Designers face the same challenges as everyone else in the complex conditions of contemporary cultural life—choices about consumption, waste, exploitation, ecological damage, and political problems built into the supply chains on which the global systems of inequity currently balance precariously. But designers face the additional dilemma that their paid work is often entangled with promoting the same systems such critical approaches seek to redress: how to reconcile this contradiction, among others, in seeking to chart an ethical course of action while still functioning effectively in the world. Ethics in Design and Communication acknowledges the complexity of this subject matter, while also demonstrating that in the ongoing struggle towards an equitable and sustainable world, the talents of design and critical thought are essential. Featured case studies include graphic design internships today, the dark web, and media coverage of the 2016 US presidential election. The fact that within this book such a wide array of practitioners, scholars, critics, and professionals commit to addressing current injustices is already a positive sign. Nonetheless, it is essential that we guard against confusing the coercive force of moral imperatives with ethical deliberation when conceiving a foundation for action.

Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION Preface Acknowledgments Introduction to the Selection of Texts Foreword: Assumptions of Ethics and Agency in Design Johanna Drucker In Search of a Philosophy for Design Ethics Laura Scherling DESIGN IN SOCIETY Designing Ethics in Large Scale Sociotechnical Systems Jeffrey Chan All Models Are Wrong: Information Design in a Post-truth World Rachel Berger Swiping Left on Empathy: Gamification and Commodification of the (Inter)face Sarah Edmands Martin Dark User Experience: From Manipulation to Deception Marc Miquel-Ribé Designing Safe Spaces for Virtual Reality: Methods for Merging Body Sovereignty Theory into VR Design Practice Michelle Cortese, Andrea Zeller Who Owns the Smart City? Towards an Ethical Framework for Civic AI Michael A. Madaio, Sarah Edmands Martin Design Possibilities and Responsibilities in Framing Well-being Heekyoung Jung THEORY AND COMMUNICATION Design and Emergent Ethical Crises Peter Buwert Designing Ourselves to Death: The Politics of Progress Versus an Ethics of Survival in a Diminishing World David Stairs Freedom and Communication Design: An Ethical Approach Sara Velez Estêvão About an Ethics of Design Activism Maziar Rezai Ethics in Contemporary Civic Engagements: Towards an Ethics of a Minor Design Activism Tau Ulv Lenskjold, Sissel Olander Graphic Design and Activism: Reflecting on Interactions Andréa Poshar WORK AND PEDAGOGY WORK Designing Tools for Low-Income Community Organizing Luke Jordan Design and Sustainable Development: Beyond Aesthetic and Functional Qualities Iván Asin Designing Ethics Tools for Self-Reflection, Collaboration, and Facilitation Ciara Taylor, Samantha Dempsey Noto Project: Between Harmony and Homogeneity Suna Jeong The Role of Ethics Online and Among Social Media Designers Meredith James PEDAGOGY Caring for What We Leave Behind: Ethical Considerations in Social Innovation Pedagogy Mariana Amatullo Perpetuating Class Divide: The Reality of Graphic Design Internships Kathryn Weinstein Highlighting Race Issues Through Mentoring and Design Sabrina Hall, Anjali Menon The Design Process is a Research Process: Students and the Ethics of Inquiry David Gelb, Angela Norwood Home: The Ethics of Addressing In-Equal Design Peter Claver Fine Threading Ethics in a Design Curriculum Paul J. Nini Index Author Biographies

About the Author :
Laura Scherling Ed.D. is a designer, researcher, and author. She is a director and faculty at Columbia University, USA, and researches emerging technologies, design, media, and sustainability topics. She completed her doctorate at Columbia University Teachers College. Andrew DeRosa is Assistant Professor of Design at Queens College, CUNY, USA, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Communications Design at the Pratt Institute, USA.

Review :
We are no longer operating in a world where we simply encounter objects and artifacts designed to act upon us. We are increasingly working on platforms and living in environments that are themselves designed to influence our thinking and behaviors. This is a wide-ranging survey of the deeper implications of design choices in the twenty-first century, and an urgent call to bring ethics back into the process, before they are rendered out of reach. This is an authoritative and inflected call for design to find the will to engage with our contemporary anxieties, if not to propose solutions to them. The book is a useful contribution to an important topic, and it will readily find its readership. This is an important and vital contribution to design education and research. I commend the editors and authors on this achievement.