To explore how regulation impacts the television industry.
For TELEVISION INDUSTRY regulation, we need to consider:
Briefly outline the ways in which your selected industry is regulated.
What impact has regulation had on your chosen texts?
Key terms:
Desensitised: Make (someone) less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of cruelty or suffering by overexposure to such images.
Watershed: In the UK, the BBC has a well-established policy of making 9pm the pivotal point of the evening's television, a Watershed before which, except in exceptional circumstances, all programmes on our domestic channels should be suitable for a general audience including children.
Censorship: A suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body.
Ofcom- is the government approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom.Formation 29 December 2003
Since the 1960s and Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll experiments, there have been many studies by social psychologists attempting to establish a causal relationship between media violence and aggressive behaviour.
Broadcast Code- Ofcom's Broadcasting Code sets rules for TV and radio stations.
The Code sets standards for television and radio shows which broadcasters have to follow.
It includes rules designed to protect viewers and listeners from harm and offence – such as what can be screened on TV before the 9pm watershed.
Every time Ofcom receives a complaint from a viewer or listener, they assess it under the Broadcasting Code to see if it needs further investigation.
If they find a programme has broken these rules, then it will be found in breach of the Code and Ofcom will publish this decision.
Learn more about how to complain about a TV/radio programme
Responsibilities
http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/Television/television.php?pageID=sched
For TELEVISION INDUSTRY regulation, we need to consider:
- OFCOM
- Broadcasting code
- BBC Board
- Legal responsibilities
- Watershed issues
Briefly outline the ways in which your selected industry is regulated.
What impact has regulation had on your chosen texts?
Starter
task:
Recall
three television texts that you have seen which contain violent content.
Classify the texts in order of violent content, most violent
at the top of your list.
Television text
|
Type and extent of
violence
|
Desensitised: Make (someone) less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of cruelty or suffering by overexposure to such images.
Watershed: In the UK, the BBC has a well-established policy of making 9pm the pivotal point of the evening's television, a Watershed before which, except in exceptional circumstances, all programmes on our domestic channels should be suitable for a general audience including children.
Censorship: A suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body.
Ofcom- is the government approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom.Formation 29 December 2003
When responding to a TV regulation question you should be able to discuss the issues that show up in our three texts; Happy Valley, Always Sunny and First Dates.
You didi this task in the lesson:
Discuss and
list the possible issues for regulation in the three texts you have studied.
Measuring aggression and its causes has always been an important focus for social psychologists, partly because excessive aggression isn't tolerated in our society, and overly aggressive individuals often find themselves in jail because of their behaviour. The first experiments on the impact of media violence on human behaviour were conducted by psychologists and sociologists who applied theories of social learning and modelling behaviour i.e. they thought that people saw violent behaviour on TV and copied it. The more violent behaviour they saw, especially violence that went unpunished, the more likely they were to behave in a violent manner themselves.
Since the 1960s and Albert Bandura's Bobo Doll experiments, there have been many studies by social psychologists attempting to establish a causal relationship between media violence and aggressive behaviour.
The Code sets standards for television and radio shows which broadcasters have to follow.
It includes rules designed to protect viewers and listeners from harm and offence – such as what can be screened on TV before the 9pm watershed.
Every time Ofcom receives a complaint from a viewer or listener, they assess it under the Broadcasting Code to see if it needs further investigation.
If they find a programme has broken these rules, then it will be found in breach of the Code and Ofcom will publish this decision.
Learn more about how to complain about a TV/radio programme
- Media has to be judged as to whether it is suitable for its audience
- žThis can be due to society, culture, where the media was made
Ofcom's responsibilities are wide-ranging. It has a statutory duty to the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition, and protecting consumers from what might be considered harmful or offensive.
Specification
of Broadcast Code – this provides a set of mandatory broadcast rules, it
covers:
Protection
of under-eighteens
Harm
and Offence
Crime
Religion
Sponsorship
Elections
Privacy
• Issue a direction not to repeat a programme or advertisement;
• Issue a direction to broadcast a correction or a statement of Ofcom’s
findings which may be required to be in such form, and to be included in programmes at
such times, as Ofcom may determine
• impose a financial penalty (The maximum financial penalty for commercial television or
radio licensees is £250,000.)
• shorten or suspend a licence (only applicable in certain cases)
• revoke a licence (not applicable to the BBC,S4C or Channel 4).
The sanctions available to OFCOM:
• Issue a direction to broadcast a correction or a statement of Ofcom’s
findings which may be required to be in such form, and to be included in programmes at
such times, as Ofcom may determine
• impose a financial penalty (The maximum financial penalty for commercial television or
radio licensees is £250,000.)
• shorten or suspend a licence (only applicable in certain cases)
• revoke a licence (not applicable to the BBC,S4C or Channel 4).
OFCOM Audience Research (2011)
• a third (33 per cent) of all parents surveyed expressed some level of concern regarding what their children had seen on TV before 9pm in the previous 12 months;
• Among all parents surveyed, the concerns most frequently mentioned were ….
• violence (20 per cent),
• sexually explicit content (17 per cent)
• offensive language (17 per cent);
• the types of programmes that caused most concern to all parents surveyed were soaps (14 per cent) and film (14 per cent), followed by reality programmes (12 per cent) and music videos (11 per cent)
What did teenagers say?
• The research amongst 768 teenagers aged 12-17 showed that:
• just under a quarter (23 per cent) said they had seen something on TV before the watershed in the previous 12 months that had made them uncomfortable or they had found offensive;
• the top five concerns measured as a percentage of all teens questioned were:
• sexually explicit content (7 per cent),
• offensive language (4 per cent),
• offensive language (4 per cent),
• violence (4 per cent),• nakedness/naked body parts (2 per cent),
• news (1 per cent)• animals being killed/mistreated (1 per cent);
Channels like the BBC for example, are also self regulatory. They work with producers to ensure that there will be no need for Ofcom to intervene except in extreme circumstances.
Although, Ofcom will become the BBC's external regulator in April 2017. Ofcom will put together an 'Operating Framework' for the BBC, covering performance, content standards and competition.
An audience member can complain to Ofcom regarding a particular programme that they may deem offensive or harmful. Audience pressure over certain programmes can often be a successful form of regulation. When Ofcom receives a complaint, it assesses it under the terms of The Broadcasting Code and decides what action to take. Ofcom produces a regular Broadcast Bulletin reporting on the complaints received and decisions taken.
All media texts are subject to regulation.
How has regulation affected your three main texts? [30]
Candidates will need to know how their selected industry is regulated and to comment on how regulation has had an effect on their studied texts.
Whilst the texts may not have been controversial they will all have had to adhere to the regulator’s code – so some discussion of relevant parts of the code may be needed.
Overall, media texts need to adhere to codes of practice so regulation may affect the structure, content, placement/scheduling etc. of texts.
Task 3:
Discuss the issues shown below in bold then list in order of issues that young people need to be protected from.
Put the most 'dangerous' at the top (1).
Discuss the issues shown below in bold then list in order of issues that young people need to be protected from.
Put the most 'dangerous' at the top (1).
Channels like the BBC for example, are also self regulatory. They work with producers to ensure that there will be no need for Ofcom to intervene except in extreme circumstances.
Although, Ofcom will become the BBC's external regulator in April 2017. Ofcom will put together an 'Operating Framework' for the BBC, covering performance, content standards and competition.
An audience member can complain to Ofcom regarding a particular programme that they may deem offensive or harmful. Audience pressure over certain programmes can often be a successful form of regulation. When Ofcom receives a complaint, it assesses it under the terms of The Broadcasting Code and decides what action to take. Ofcom produces a regular Broadcast Bulletin reporting on the complaints received and decisions taken.
All media texts are subject to regulation.
How has regulation affected your three main texts? [30]
Candidates will need to know how their selected industry is regulated and to comment on how regulation has had an effect on their studied texts.
Whilst the texts may not have been controversial they will all have had to adhere to the regulator’s code – so some discussion of relevant parts of the code may be needed.
Overall, media texts need to adhere to codes of practice so regulation may affect the structure, content, placement/scheduling etc. of texts.
“A lot of people in the movie industry tend to run and hide from it like ostriches. Movie industry people are definitely in denial right now, but you do become desensitized to violence when you see it on the screen so often. Let's face it, violence exists for one reason in movies, and that's to get an effect, create an emotion, sell tickets.”—Madeleine Stowe
Bandura and Social Learning Theory
Censorship is essentially an issue of responsibility. Are we responsible for processing and filtering the images that we see and the lyrics we hear, or is someone else (parents or government) responsible for processing and filtering for us?
Should the creators of media texts censor themselves, and take responsibility for the effects their texts may have on an individual? If there are going to be legal restrictions on the depiction of violence, who writes and enforces them?
These are difficult questions, and they have been debated for centuries. There's a broad consensus that some censorship is necessary — although in the Internet age it may be impossible to enforce.
Most people would agree that not all media texts are suitable for all audiences. It is generally agreed that there need to be some limitations placed on the type and content of texts which young children are exposed to, for instance. It is also agreed that the texts which are accessible to a wide and largely involuntary or non-selecting audience (billboards, television commercials, music broadcast on the radio, terrestrial TV before the watershed) should not contain elements which might be offensive.
Therefore, rules and regulations and systems have been set up to filter the content of certain media texts in certain situations. This is the practice of censorship.
Issues facing producers of factual programming.
Under 18s must be protected from potentially harmful and offensive material.
One of the main ways of achieving this is through the appropriate scheduling of programmes.
Anything unsuitable for any viewers must be shown at nine pm or later.
Nothing unsuitable for children should, in general, be shown before 9pm or after 5.30 am.
There should then be a gradual transition to more adult material, generally, the more adult in nature a programme is, the later in the schedule it should appear.
Below is also taken from a page on the OFCOM website:
Ofcom
The Office of Communications commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.
Ofcom has wide-ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material.
It is Ofcom's job to protect the under 18's from seeing harmful content.
The creation of media texts and their content is complex but Ofcom is concerned about the issues listed below.
Task 2:
List the issues below in order of issues that young people need to be protected from.
Put the most 'dangerous' at the top.
Task 2:
List the issues below in order of issues that young people need to be protected from.
Put the most 'dangerous' at the top.
Drugs, smoking, solvents and alcohol
- These activities should not be condoned, encouraged or glamorised in programmes likely to be widely seen by under 18s unless there is editorial justification.
Violence and dangerous behaviour
- Violence, its after-effects and descriptions of violence, whether verbal or physical, must be appropriately limited in programmes broadcast before the watershed (in the case of television) or when children are particularly likely to be listening (in the case of radio) and must also be justified by the context.
Offensive language
- The most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed (in the case of television) or when children are particularly likely to be listening (in the case of radio).
Sexual material
- Material equivalent to the British Board of Film Classification ("BBFC") R18-rating must not be broadcast at any time.
- In addition, measures must be in place to ensure that the subscriber is an adult.
Nudity
- Nudity before the watershed must be justified by the context.
Exorcism, the occult and the paranormal
- Demonstrations of exorcisms, occult practices and the paranormal (which purport to be real), must not be shown before the watershed (in the case of television) or when children are particularly likely to be listening (in the case of radio).
Below is also taken from a page on the OFCOM website:
Television
What is the watershed?
Protecting children from harmful material on TV and radio is one of Ofcom’s most important duties.
Our Broadcasting Code sets standards for television and radio shows and broadcasters must follow its rules.
There are strict rules about what can be shown on TV before the 9pm watershed. But what exactly is the watershed and how does it work?
The watershed means the time when TV programmes which might be unsuitable for children can be broadcast.
When is it?
The watershed begins at 9pm and material unsuitable for children should not, in general, be shown before 9pm or after 5.30am.
What do you mean by unsuitable material?
Unsuitable material can include everything from sexual content to violence, graphic or distressing imagery and swearing. For example, the most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed on TV or, on radio, when children are particularly likely to be listening. Frequent use of offensive language must be avoided before the watershed, and must always be justified by its context.
Can TV channels show whatever they like after 9pm?
No. The transition to more adult material must not be unduly abrupt and the strongest material should appear later in the evening. But even then Ofcom’s rules protect viewers from offensive and harmful content.
What happens if broadcasters break the rules?
Since 2003 Ofcom has taken action on more than 300 occasions when broadcasters have scheduled unsuitable content before or immediately after the watershed. In two recent cases inappropriate music videos — including Rihanna’s S&M — were shown early in the afternoon.
Does the watershed still matter?
The watershed continues to help parents protect their children from material that might be unsuitable or even harmful for them.
Twice a year, every year, we ask parents and the wider general public what they think about standards on TV. Almost everyone (93 per cent) understands the watershed and 74 per cent think 9pm is the right time. If you just ask parents, that number rises to 76 per cent.
http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/Television/television.php?pageID=sched
