Ethics of Global Internet, Community and Fame Addiction

Journal of Business Ethics · 2009 · Volume 85 · Issue 2

Abstract

Robert Putnam in his bookBowling Aloneand subsequent works has analysed the phenomenon that American society increasingly avoids various community driven activities, such as civic associations, activities with friends and family (Putnam,Bowling Alone. Simon and Schuster, New York; 2006). In this paper we introduce the idea that a counterpart to this social trend is a global addiction to fame and celebrity. We believe that the global internet is one of the major drivers of this search for fame for the sake of being famous. However, most people aspiring to be famous celebrities will not succeed in this quest, and become disappointed. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the ethical implications of such social contagion, bandwagon effects in today’s global business environment towards fame and celebrity. The contribution of this paper is to provide a future direction for research on business ethics in terms of this growing global phenomenon of fame and celebrity addiction.

Keywords

ethics, community, fame, celebrity, internet, civic associations, addiction, social contagion

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