Week 4: Censorship, effects, and moral panics: what do the media do to people?

This week’s lecture discussed media regulation, 'censorship', effects and moral panics.

The act of consuming media presents us with observable actions, feelings and relationships with media forms, at the individual and group levels, which we can understand in conceptual and theoretical terms.

 (Long and Wall 2012, 276)

The view that media consumed has a direct effect on audiences comes from the idea that audience are passive. 'The first model tends to relate to what we describe as 'mass society' perspectives and approaches, in which audience members are often understood as the passive receptacles for these messages.' (Long and Wall 2012, 279) However, this is not the case as effects theories such as hypodermic needle theory assumes that all audience members respond to media in the same way, but still this theory is seen as a common sense theory. A second media model 'takes a broad view of media products and their meanings as in some way determined by consumers themselves, rather than being products full of meanings simply imposed on them externally.' (Long and Wall 2012, 279)

Regulation can be used for two reasons, morality - protecting vulnerable groups and individuals and for choice - in order to provide diversity. Official regulation includes statutory state regulation and self-regulation. In Bignall's key reading he discusses how those with power are able to control what the audience can and cannot see. 'In media theory, members of the elite group that has the power to determine what information can be circulated are referred to as 'gatekeepers'.' (Bignall 2004, 231) 'the gatekeepers make use both of published regulations and guidelines about programme content, and of their own internalised sense of what is right and wrong to broadcast.' (Bignall 2004, 231)

The reading I have acquired this week talks about media culture and government policy. 'In the United States, media culture is produced and disseminated by large and powerful private industries.' (Crane 1992, 156) This relates to the concept discussed in the Bignall reading of control and power.

Television regulations have been largely made by well-educated and socially powerful elite groups in society, the underlying ideology of television regulation has considered the less socially powerful and less well-educated mass audiences of television as vulnerable and prone to bad influences.

(Bignall 2004, 242)

However Bignall suggests that using regulation and censorship will protect the audience rather than undermine them. Unlike the Crane reading which says that 'the power to decide what will be shown over the air rests with a very few.' (Cranes 1992, 157) This gives the view that when media texts are regulated it is without the choice and consideration of what the audience would want to see and rather presuming that the audience cannot handle uncensored and unregulated material.

The Nelmes reading talks about 'those who argue in favour of censorship claim that it reflects and protects standards of morality generally held in society.' (Nelmes 1999, 48) this is the belief that censorship advocates and upholds morality held in society. However, 'those who argue against it say that, rather than reflecting standards, it imposes them.' (Nelmes 1999, 48) 

Bibliography

Bignell, J (2004) An Introduction to Television Studies, London: Routledge. pp 229-252

Crane, Diana (1992) The production of culture, media and the urban art: Foundations of popular culture vol. 1, California: SAGE Publications pp. 156 - 157

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) ‘Producing audiences: what do media do to people?’ IN Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2^nd Edition), London: Pearson. pp 274-299

Nelmes, J (1999) An Introduction to Film Studies, 2^nd Edition, London: Routledge. pp. 48-53