Critical Responses Task 4-Censorship

In the following essay Im going to cover censorship and whether I think it is a good thing or bad thing, I will do this by covering both the good and bad sides of censorship by collecting information from numerous sources, what groups I think censorship should be applied to, to protect. I will also write about how censorship affects adverts including examples. Censorship is the suppression of speech, or other content, which may be considered as objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by a government. Basically every media product can be censored such as Books, Video Games, Music lyrics or videos, Newspapers and Magazines etc..

Is censorship a good or bad thing?

There are numerous good points to write about censorship, such as it is very useful in the protection of children and stopping them from seeing explicit materials, the censoring of childrens media will most commonly be seen in childrens TV programmes or in the form of childrens books, there are numerous examples of censorship of childrens media, such as The Famous Roald Dahls classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this book was challenged as the Oompa Loompas were deemed as racists as they were described as Small, black pygmies so the book was taken back and the description was changed to Knee-high Dwarfs the images in the book were also changed to appear less racist you can see an image to the right of the development of the illustration of the images of the Oompa Loompas due to censorship. This is a good example of censoring because the children will have seen the original image and may have built up a negative images of black people due to the way they were originally portrayed in the book. Another good point of censorship is, is the protection of national secrets being exposed its a good point that material like this is censored because if national secrets such as the locations of troops or locations of were weapons were stored people seen as enemies could pottentially use them. This was evident in the First and Second world war, were letter which were sent home from Soldiers to their families at home the letters would be sent to a building were they would be read and then simply if any of the letters comtained what was deemed to secret information they would just quite simply cross the word out so, if the enemies got hold of the letters then they couldnt use it to their advantage. Finally my last point about how censoring is a good thing is in the examples of films which cointain graphic material or abusive langauge an example of censorship of a film is the film Rambo III which was the third movie out the notriuosly violent Rambo Series the film contains scenes of about 132 people being killed overall. The film was realeased around a very sensitive time of the Hunger Ford massacure were Micheal Ryan killed 16 people with an assortment of guns. The film was intended to be released as a 15+ certificate like the other two previous films but due to the large amount of shooting included in the film the film was heavily reviwed and other much dispute the certificate was changed to an 18+.

Now Im going to explain why I think that censorship is a bad thing by using examples. First of all I think that censorship is a bad thing, in the terms that I think it is a violation of your human rights to free speech and our right to freedom of expression in certain cases. An example of how I think it is a violation of some of our human rights is the case of a chineese journalist called, Shi Tao, China is a country which is notorioulsy know for its censorship laws, so much that its censorship over the internet has gained the name The Great Firewall of China. Shi Tao sent an email to decomarcy website based in US regarding the 15th aniversary of Tiananmen Square, with the strict censorship laws in place over the internet Shi Tao received a ten year jail sentence for the email he has sent. This is one of the reasons why I think censorship is a bad thing because it was a clear violation of his human rights as all he was doing was expressing him self on a subject and due to censorship laws he got put in prison. Another reason why I think censorship is a bad thing is due to censorship on the internet is progressivly getting stricter as we can see on social networking websites such as Twitter & Facebook, were people are getting banned due to comments they are making which might offend a small amount of people but not the majority. The main reason why Im agaisnt internet censorship to such a heavy degree is, firstly nobody owns the internet because its just a collection of differenrent servers all owned by different people and secondly I think that people are smart enough to self censor, for example if you didnt want to view graphic content then quite simply just dont go on websites which are associated with such content, so there is no need for hevy internet censoring. My third and final reason why I think cenosring is a bad thing is in the case of the governemnt claiming that they are keeping national secrets safe, I used this in why I censorship is a good thing but I used the example of letters in the first and second world war. But the reason why I think it is also a bad thing is in the cases were information is kept from the public what I believe the pibluc needs to know, examples of this information is the information which Edward Snowden has just made public which has been censored from the public for years. Edward Snowden released information on the website www.wikileaks.org the information he released talked of the NSA and GCHQ basically spying on peoples phone calls with no prominent reason at all, this information was witheld from the public and I think that this is extremly wrong as if your phone calls are being monitered and your personal data being collected then you have a right to know. Overall I dont believe that censorship is a good thing just purely due to the fact that I believe once something is censored by the government then I believe that you are only seeing what they want you to see. I also dont believe that censorship is a good thing because I dont think its nesseacry to censor everything as you can self censor things yourself, by not watching films which you know has content which will offend you and by not going on people websites again which will contain content that you will be offended by. The only reason I would argue that it is a good thing is in the case of childrens media and protecting them from being exposed to graphic content.

What types of media should definitely be censored and what types shouldnt?
Im now going to talk about types of media which I believe should be censored and media which I believe shouldnt be censored and why I think this. First of all the media which I think should be censored is only really media designed for children which are things such as childrens book, childrens TV and websites which are designed for children, I believe they should be censored as children dont have the ability to self-censor the same as adults do and also the fact that a childs mind is probably more easily influenced than an adults for example if a child read a book which included abusive language then the child is more likely to use those words because they are still learning, than if an adult read a book which contained offensive language because an adult is also more likely to understand what the words mean. The types of media which I dont believe should be censored is the internet, as I have talked about it recently because no-one actually owns the internet so who decided on what to censor and what not to censor so who ever ended up with control on censoring the internet would be in a very powerful position and could potentially control a lot of people, also there is the fact that the internet is too big of a place to completely censor.

Should libraries censor which books they put on the shelves?

I dont believe that libraries should have to censor what books they put on the shelf and what books they shouldnt. I believe this because there is such a vast array of topics that a book can be written on if they started to censor what books they put on a shelf, due to the fact that it might offend somebody they wouldnt have hardly any books on the shelfs left for example if someone disagreed with a religion and is offended by the books a library had on the certain religion then the library could remove the book to try and cause less offence but in that case they would offend the people who followed the religion. Also in libraries they have a good enough system of putting the books into relevant categories to make sure that you wont pick up a book which will offend you. Is censorship harmful? I think that censorship is harmful, in the cases of information being withheld from the public which they are entitled to know. I also think it is harmful to a childs education in the ways that it can become what I regard as stupid for example the amount of childrens books which have been banned especially when it comes to books about history which have been banned an example of this is Anne Frank: The Diary of a Girl this book was banned in secondary schools in the state of New Hampshire as they described it as Pretty graphic and its pretty pornographic for seventh grade boy or girl to be reading I think that this is harmful to a childs education because they should be able to learn about history and what has happened before they existed if they have the desire to do so. The only argument I have against it not being harmful is when it protects the public from seeing really graphic images or being exposed to abusive language all the time.

Should certain ideas be banned from the classroom?

I think that yes some ideas should be banned from the classroom such as ideas about violence, or ideas which will teach hate, but they are about the only ideas what should be banned from a classroom. But once again we have seen many ideas which have been banned from the classroom mainly through banned childrens literature, this only really happens in religious schools one example of this happening was in a school in Kent, the Harry Potter book series was banned the following statement sums up the reason why it was banned: "The Bible is very clear and consistent in its teachings that wizards, devils and demons exist and are very real, powerful and dangerous and God's people are told to have nothing to do with them." I think that it is absurd to ban such books because apparently they promote bad ideas as long as the children are taught that it is completely fictional then it wont promote bad ideas because lets be serious even if you do read the Harry Potter books youre not going to go outside after reading it and try and cast spells or fly around on a broom stick. Also I believe that ideas such as racism or violence shouldnt be banned from the classroom just so that children are taught what is morally wrong.

Should people be granted gagging orders to stop the press reporting something about them?
Yes I think that people should be able to get gagging orders to stop the press reporting something about them, because its a breach of someones privacy if someone makes private information about you available to the public. I also think that they should be able to do grant gagging orders for the protection of people, for example if someone knew the wear bouts of a famous person who was in protective custody then a gagging order should also be granted in this case to try and ensure the safety of a person. There are also examples were I think that gagging orders maybe shouldnt be granted and that is in the case of were someone i.e. a celebrity has had too much to drink and then they do something that they regret. I dont think that a gagging order should be granted in these cases because you should be able to live up to your consequences of the actions that you created.

What is the media effects theory and does it prove that the media affects people ?
The media effects theory, which was first created by the Frankfurt School of social researchers in the 1920s to help understand, peoples reactions to Nazi propaganda. Its a theory, which is about how the media can affect society and also about how society affects the media. An example of the media affects theory and how media has had a bad effect on society is in the case of copycat killers because most likely someone will read a book or watch a television programme about a certain murder or a spree of murders and the media will act as an inspiration for them and they will then go out and try and recreate the conditions of the murder, obviously this is not a normal case scenario because the person has to have the mentality to kill someone in the first place. Now for how it proves that the media can affect people is in the example of the game manhunt which was banned in 2004 when a teenage boy killed someone in the style that you would kill somebody on manhunt. But its not all bad the media can influence people in goo ways for example if there is an aid for appeal in a magazine that you follow and read regularly then you are likely to give to that appeal.

Does advertising influence us and should advertising for children be banned?

I think that anybody who denies that we are not influenced heavily by advertising would be stupid, I think that we are heavily influenced by it because it influences what products we buy in everyday life. For example if one product had a really good advert which looked professional and then another product of the same type had a very unprofessional looking advert then you are more likely to buy the product with the professional looking advert even if the product with the worst advert is the better product in terms of efficiency. Another way in which I think that advertising influences heavily because the adverts even though they are made to appeal to the masses and not just one person, they always seem as if they are made and addressed specifically to you so you are more likely to want to buy the product because you will think if the advert is tailored for you then the product will be then. Finally my final reason why I think that adverts influence us so much is that they appear in so many forms as they basically appear on every web page you go on, you receive them in emails in the form of promotions and finally a type of advertising which many people may not even think of as advertising and that is when someone you know personally recommends a product for you this is a very influencal form of advertising because if someone you know and trust recommends a product to you then you are likely to go out and buy it if you trust that person. Furthermore I think that adverts for children should be banned because I dont think that the majority of children will be able to understand the whole idea of advertising and how it is just essentially trying to trap you into buying a product and I think that a child will fall too easily into the trap.