Understanding ethical closure

The paper addresses the formation of moral consciousness in organizations. In particular, it focus to what extent and how organizational arrangements encourage and/or prohibit the development and exercise of moral judgement among newspaper professionals. The paper draws empirically from a case study of a Swedish evening newspaper, and from interviews with professionals from various kinds of media organizations (TV, radio, print media). Drawing on Jackall’s (1988) concept of the ‘moral consciousness of bureaucracy’, and from the intellectual tradition of critical theory, the paper attempts to identify and discuss the specific processes that shape moral consciousness – or perhaps the lack of it – in organizational contexts in general, and in newspaper organizations in particular. The paper takes a particular interest in the process that disables and blocks the development and exercise of moral judgement, here labeled processes of ethical closure. Four specific cases of ethical closure; ethical sealing, ethical bracketing, double dehumanization, and commodification are identified and elaborated.