LO3: Ethical, social, moral (P4)

LO3: Ethical, social, moral (P4)

For this you must think about what you are producing, look at the main ethical, social and moral  legal issues (e.g. representation of groups if using images, using a range of language options and why if an app or game etc. Not encouraging anti-social behaviour, think about age of audience ).

You must then detail how you have considered these social, ethical and moral and what will do to abide by these.

You must cover at least FIVE social/legal/moral issues.

fat shaming

languages

use different age, genders, race 

Within my app there would likely be a variety of ethical, social and moral issues that would be raised. For example the representations of age, gender and race. It is essential that the app does not disctrimate against gender, race or age in order to not cause offence and better appeal to a wider audience. Subsequently, the imagery used within the app should represent a variety of races, ages and genders by using a variety of models throughout the app, this minimises the risk of offence and broadens the appeal to the target audience as users would have someone they could relate to in some form.

Other social issues that could arise as part of this use of this would be the accessibility. Similar to that of using a variety of models to appeal to wider audience, a variety of language options should also be implemented into the app. By not restricting the app to one main language, it gives for more flexibility when being used by those from other countries or those persons where by English is not their chosen language.  Subsequently, the option to choose a language from the most common alternative languages would be provided, this would translate all the content within the app making it easy to use. Furthermore, this could increase the reach of the app, the ability to change languages could make it appeal to other countries wider than intended UK market, therfore making it more popular with a wider user base. Other accesbilty elements which could be implemented would be text to speech or high contrast options for the visually impaired. 

Security would also be an issue that would have to be considered. Due to my intended app being a health app, security is essential. To function the app would collect and hold health data from the user in order to provide accurate information with regards to things such as calorie counts and progress reports. All this information recored would be considered sensitive data and therefore it would have to be protected in order for it not to used by any other persons or for any other use other than the app.  As a result, the app and information stored would have to be encrypted and only stored for the minimum amount of time necessary. 

Other ethical issues that could be encountered as a result of the production of my app in addition to representations of genders and races within the sport, would be to not body shame or promote unhealthy lifestyles. Therefore, in order to not influence users the app should not glamorise drug or supplement taking which can be present within the sporting industry. Additionally, the forum side to the app would also have to be monitored in order to ensure non of the users themselves are promoting this or being discriminatory against the users.

Safety aspects should also have to be considered, the app would  likely be glamorising the sport and therefore encourage users to take part in the sport. This could result in injury for the inexperienced. In an attempt to minimise this, the necessary health and safety guidance would be provided in addition to warnings and possible age restrictions.