censorship in media

Censorship

What is Censorship?

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive to an audience through media. An example of this is the age rating for films, television programs, and games which separate them into different categories depending on the content suitable for certain age groups. In the UK the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is responsible for the national classification and censorship of films and determines what people can view and not view.

It is against the law to sell an over age rated item to anyone who is under the age of the stated age rating, shop keepers can be fined if this occurs due to the risk of exposure of sexual scenes, violence, bad language and overall adult scenes.

Why do we need censorship?

If we didn't have censorship young children could be exposed to things that are not meant to be seen by a child of that age, they would be able to access inappropriate websites such as porn or scamming websites. Without censorship there would be no boundaries on what is presented to who and no one would be aware of what the film, game or TV show contains and could offend people due to the fact different people have different opinions and views on what the media may contain, such as racist jokes, sexual humour or gender/disability jokes which may offend certain individuals which is a good example for needing censorship within media.

Just as certain things in the media outlets are restricted from being exposed to easily impressionable children, the representation of certain groups within society such as people with disabilities, different religions and the general appearance of certain people is something that has caused discussion between the general public , specifically parents concerned in what their children are introduced to on TV or even in stories/magazines . An example of this continuing the representation of a group of people is Cerrie Burnell who was assigned as a presenter of the children's TV channel CBeebies. 

Cerrie joined the CBeebies team six years ago and had received complaints from parents soon after she appeared on the channel due to the fact she had half an arm. They believed that it would frighten their children and that i was a difficult subject to explain to them.

I believe that it is a good ting that this is not censored from children as it creates knowledge that everybody is different but we are all human no matter what the disability. It also creates a norm from a young age showing that these things are normal and its nothing to be frightened about.

Who runs censorship in the media?

Censorship in the media is run by the government and large media companies. Because the government are the source of the censorship, it means that the publics view on different subjects are changed to make the government look better by not exposing us to what will make them look bad. Censorship can reach extreme levels in different countries where citizens of that country are restricted to watching news, videos or any other source of media to do with other countries governments due to beliefs that it will corrupt the views on their own country. Censorship is national and has different regulations in each country according to their government and age limits set to view certain footage and information.

In my opinion censoring is good as it protects the younger generation from being influenced by media outlets that will influence them on a long term or short term basis due to the events shown throughout films, video gams and websites. However most people do not abide by these terms and buy whatever they want no matter the age.