The question being investigated in this essay is whether information ethics is culture-relative. In answering this question, it has to be kept in mind that the principal aims of information ethics are not descriptive, but normative and evaluative. That is, its principal aim is not to describe existing morality regarding information but rather to morally evaluate information practices and to prescribe and justify moral standards and principles for practices involving the production, consumption or processing of information.

By acknowledging cultural relativism, we can recognize that our culture shapes what we consider to be beautiful, ugly, appealing, disgusting, virtuous, funny, and abhorrent. It shapes what we consider to be good and bad art, music, and film, as well as what we consider to be tasteful or tacky consumer goods.

In this study, we try to look at the term “social” in a social media context and exploreits relationship with two other important terms: information and interactivity. We start byexploring the characteristics of “information” in a socialmedia environment, then focus onthree research approaches to interactivity, and finally suggest an alternative explanation and amodel to determine what is “social” in a social media environment.

Technological devices are a complex of the materialsubstances and artifacts out of which things are made, the skills and techniquesrequired to make and use things, the ends and functions that things serve, andthe social contexts of development, production, distribution, and administrationin which things are made and used.

Human ends and values direct technologicalprocesses, making them an entirely human affair. These human concerns aredesigned into things; our technologies embody our humanity. It is more helpful tothink of technology as a socially constructed reality rather than as the applicationof universally valid scientific principles. That way we can begin to appreciate—and criticize—how the things we make are human creations that, in turn, greatlyaffect human affairs.