Ethics of gossip

‘A rumor was spread that I was addicted to heroin, which I wasn’t, but a lot of people treated me differently and questioned me about it.”
When I surveyed random students her at Olivet College I received interesting answers to how their lives are affected by gossip. The quote above wasn’t one of the only intense answers. I wonder, how is Olivet so focused on gossip? If lying is deemed unethical so are rumors, the core of what gossip seems to consist of here at Olivet. It isn’t just Olivet, gossip consumes society. From trashy celebrity magazines to “water cooler” gossip it is experienced daily. Workplaces, school, families, and society, as a whole, is indulged in gossip, what Time magazine suggest we partake in for the “interest and entertainment of it all.” Some suggest we gossip because it is a “necessary evil”, that society needs gossip to function. The Presidential election was a prime example of gossip beyond just the rumor mill of Olivet. We experience gossip in so many ways, we’ve all been taught not to do it (it’s simply unethical) yet many of us participate in , “talking about someone not present”, the definition given by my interpersonal communication course’s text book.
Students were asked questions about gossip in an online survey. I collected 76 responses from unnamed students. The answers to, “define gossip” varied but had an underlying theme; gossip isn’t something that should be supported. 81 percent of student definitions included that gossip was talking about others but only 32 percent thought it had to be behind someone’s back or when the subject of the discussion is absent. 18 percent of respondents said gossip is strictly negative but 8 percent of the definitions said gossip could be good or bad. No one thought gossip was a good practice (but as a campus we are participating)! 29 percent of surveyed students said that what is said in gossip was a rumor, or untruthful, or there was no proof to defend what it is said. Other student definitions included hearsay, small talk, sharing something overheard, that gossip is only for amusement or to make themselves feel better. It was said that gossip is something shared of no meaning, distorted facts, or the exchange or sharing of information.
Besides the daily gossip on campus some colleges and universities have had a problem with online gossip. Facebook is a major way gossip can get started but another website has made headlines, Juicy Campus.com has made waves at Cornell and Duke, as well as other campuses. Basically, the site is a outlet to anonymously call anyone out, make any claim, or share any simple gossip.
According to USA Today, it is tricky to do much about escalated situations that occur on the internet because you can limit society’s freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is a right we all have but when fact becomes fiction the line of ethics is crossed. Juicy Campus has threads that read, “Top Ten Freshman Sluts”, “She deserved it” a headline about a rape case, “Students Who Suck for Grades”, “Fraternity, Gays Only”, and “Naked Dancing Roommate” are a few of the more scandalous ones. The internet has provided students with too much anouniminity allowing for more gossip and untruths than ever. An online post from the Juicy Web Site caused a student from Vanderbilt University, Chelsea Gorman, to transfer schools afraid for how students would treat her after the website had posting about her deserving what she got; rape. It is not only unethical but ignorant to blame rape victims. The Juicy site also caused students to become depressed and even attempt suicide, claims an article by ABC news.
Juicy is a great example of campuses being too consumed with gossip. Students become unethical in their words when they don’t have to take credit in them. In the halls students are constantly being talked about…and have you ever been in the Mott computer lab after a big crazy party or weekend, unethical gossip for sure. Gossip is not good for who is being talked about, do you want to hear things about yourself that aren’t the truth, no, and that is why you should not participate in gossip yourself. One Olivet student said when people talk about them they, “feel unaccepted and my self confidence decreases” but also said, “I know it’s wrong to talk about others but sometimes it can help to get stuff off of my chest.” Getting something off your chest is one thing, but exaggerating and telling stretched truths results in poor treatment of other human beings, which isn’t at all acceptable or ethical.
Another example of gossip is the Presidential election…Obama or McCain? Political “mudslinging” is gossip we all see in the form of 3 minute commercials throughout the month of October. Not only has the media been broadcasting the campaigns, full of distorted facts and gossip, but there have been other rumors surrounding the subject. In the last week on campus I’ve heard, “No one votes the fourth, democrats vote the fifth and republicans on the sixth” and “Too many people will be at the polls, you have to vote absentee to get your vote counted”. Neither of the latter are true, polls are open on the fourth, and if you are registered you can vote. Obama is rumored to be Muslim and McCain a communist, neither are true. As a society we know we are judgmental, the ethical thing to do when you hear something is to confirm it from a reliable source, just as gossip shouldn’t effect who we vote for it shouldn’t affect judgment we place on our fellow classmates.
Gossip is clearly of negative effect but we do it for a reason other than simple human nature. Other than its entertainment value, Mental Help.net claims we gossip for stature. We gossip, “Behind the backs of others becoming a form of social control in which standards of behavior are met and enforced through the process of gossip.” So otherwise, when we gossip it keeps the social hierarchy of society in balance. The claim that it forms societal boundaries and that it occurs as a result of the need to conform.
As a society conforming to something unethical is not a good idea, we don’t want to foster gossip as something positive to future generations. Mental Help.net makes the point that, “the fact that human beings have a long history of doing something doesn’t make it right. After all, we have a long history of making war…” Just because we have used gossip as a social tool doesn’t mean we need to continue it as an unethical means of degradation, embarrassment, or power. Sometimes hearing a rumor is enough to cause the belief of what was heard, ethically facts should be checked.
When I surveyed students and found that 2/3 of the respondents were negatively affected by gossip I realized “water cooler” gossip has gone too far. Some contributions of gossip are devastating causing psychological and physical effects too many. Gossip is too easily abused and overdone, losing its capabilities of helping society and more so hindering it. When you overhear students in the KC talking and you tell what you heard to someone else, unless you have a pen and paper or a tape recorder, how can you be sure you retold the story correctly? You can’t, merely repeating what’s overheard can balloon into a bigger issue than expected. Ethically whomever you are speaking about should be present to defend their position, or ensure the facts.
As children we played a game called telephone, you whisper a sentence to the person next to you and it gets passed around the circle, and by the time it returns to the person who initially said anything it is usually an unidentifiable sentence, definitely not the same one that started the game: this is gossip. One student said, “People spread gossip and it changes rapidly from the truth to a very distorted, sometimes disturbing rumor that in no way shape or form really happened.” If you operate under the Ethics of Care system, and you care about human beings, gossip is unethical, gossip hurts people.
Overall gossip is a powerful, misused, tool in society. If it is used to gain too much power, lies are told about someone for another’s gain, it has become an unethical practice. Society balances itself through the honest exchange of ideas, but when exaggeration, misrepresentation, libel, slander, and misuse of the internet comes into play gossip becomes a malicious exchange.
The media, politicians, mother –in-laws, friends, students, and coworkers engage in gossip but it needs to remain honest and contain integrity. Lance Morrow, of Time magazine says, It [gossip] is unworthy, nosy, hypocritical, and moralistic, a sort of participatory nastiness.” Gossip can ruin lives but human nature calls for it in society. As a campus we need to be compelled to end unethical gossip and partake in a more useful exchange of ideas. None of us need or deserve judgment so remember what Edward Hoch, renowned mystery writer once said, “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly becomes any of us, to talk about the rest of us.”

WORKS CITED
Berryman-Fink, C., Verderber, K., & Verderber, R. (2006). Inter-Act: Interpersonal Communication Concepts, Skills, and Contexts Includes Inter-Action! CD. New York: Oxford University Press, USA.
Mcniff, E., & Varney, A. (2008, May 14). College Gossip Crackdown: Chelsea Gorman Speaks Out. Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://abcnews.com.
Morrow, L. (1981, October 26). The Morals of Gossip. Retrieved October 27, 2008, from www.time.com/time/magazine/article.
Pope, J. (n.d.). Students Fume at College Gossip Site. Retrieved November 3, 2008, from http://www.usatoday.com.
Schwartz, A. (n.d.). Relationship Problems. Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://mentalhelp.net.