Media and Audiences Essay

Should the media be regulated

Within this essay I will be exploring all the ideas into should the media be regulated. I will be exploring the pros and cons for should media be regulated. I will be writing about how heavily regulated the media is in the UK. 

In Britain everything is regulated, everything in Britain now has a rating on it wether it being a video or a DVD or even a game. Since 1984 Britain have have cracked down on ratings on such as you can't buy a 18 film now if you aren't 18 and you have to have your ID as proof to show that your 18. Before 1984 you were able to just walk into a shop and buy videos and games at any age because there was no age rating on them. It is also the same when you go to the cinema to watch a film if the film is over a 15 usually you will need your ID as proof of age. This will show that you are at the suitable age to watch the film.

The Vulnerable people are the children who have seen all these films before the act was introduced. They are vulnerable because they have seen films that aren't suitable for there viewing as Evil Dead is a horror film a lot of scenes from it were cut out at the cinema to make the film look like it doesn't look as bad as people say it is. After the film was released on DVD the editors were allowed to add the stuff that they took out at the cinema so the film is worse on DVD. Children were then allowed to buy this film because it had no rating this is why children were vulnerable. This film was one of the reasons that age certificates were added because how the film was.

The possible effects of this are that it allows the government to put ratings onto games and videos so that the age certificate given is only suitable for that age. This can stop kids that are at the age of about 9-10 year olds buying films such as Chucky and Rambo and watching them at the homes or even as far as buying them anymore. The only problem with this was that most children has already seen Evil Dead and Rambo before so parents feel that the governing bodies have reacted to late to put age certificates on films.

Within the media effects and standards one of the main issues with this is the sexual violence in film. This is a major issue because of the embedded notion that the films may be harmful to some audience. A film that had major issues with this was Lara Crofts Tomb Raider in 2001, Simon West USA/Germany/UK/Japan gave the film a 12 certificate on the grounds that the film included glamorisation of the weapons that were used in the film. This would then encourage children of the ages 12 and above to use these weapons and imitate the techniques Lara Croft uses.

The effects such as the hyper dermic model and the Effects Studies such as Modelling and the Copy Cat theory an example of the copy cat they could be Power Rangers with children watching Power Rangers and then going to try and copy why they do such as trying to attempt to copy the kicks they do and how they fly on the floor when they get shot at. This could also have relations to Natural Born Killers by sending children on killing sprees. The hyper dermic model can be associated with children playing the game Grand Theft Auto. There are scenes in the games where you have the enemies smoking cannabis and because children have seen it on the game this may want to go and try all these drugs and be like the enemies on Grand Theft Auto. Desensitisation is the theory of children viewing to much violence on screen and this could also come from maybe playing games with a lot of violent nature such as Call of Duty. Call of Duty is a war game which is based around all the wars such as World War 1 and World War 2. Call of Duty Modern WareFare 2 is a game about the recent war in Afghanistan and this could lead to children being obsessed about guns and violence and again this could bye linked to Natural Born Killers and inspire to children to want to go on killing sprees and blow buildings up.

Now the regulatory bodies for games are PEGI, PEGI are the company behind rating games on how violent they are and are they suitable for people under a certain age. Some of the most controversial games is Grand Theft Auto, parents have refused to buy this game for their children as it is a free roam game which allows you to buy weapons and shot innocent people on the streets. This game also allows you to go and do bank heists on the game. This game could be seen as a morale panic for parents as they don't want their children to think they can then go and rein act all these scenes from Grand Theft Auto. After the 9/11 tragedy they released Grand Theft Auto San Andreas which is the most controversial Grand Theft Auto. Parents from America refused to buy their children this game because it allowed you to go to the airport and rob planes and try and rein act the 9/11 tragedy. This was one of the reasons parents tried to get this game banned.

Another Controversial game was Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, this game was controversial because it was all about the wars in Afghanistan and a lot of it was based around where the soldiers were fighting to this day. Some parents in England refused to let there children play this game on there games consoles because of this. Another reason parents tried to get this game banned was because the worldwide release of the game was on Remembrance Day. People of the UK thought it was disrespectful to release a war game which is based in Afghanistan on Remembrance Day as our soldiers were still fighting for our country when this game was released. The game was also very violent as when you was playing the campaign or you was playing online with your friends when you got shot all the blood from where you have been shot would then appear on your screen. The game was full of swearing and nothing but violence and because of these reasons created a morale panic about the game.

The Obscene publications act was first introduced in 1959, this was created for an offence of publishing obscene material. This act has been used in a few of high profile cases such as the trail of the penguin books for publishing the book Lady chatterys lover which also makes the 50 Shades of Grey books like very tame. Lady Chatterys book tells the story of an adulterous love affair and uses sexual language and this lead to the book being banned in the UK. The language that was used in the book was used to provoke the censors. In 1959 the Groves press tried to re print the original edition to the book which included offensive words to test the American Obscenity laws. After this trail Penguin books brought out a censored edition. The Obscene publications act also applies to television, wether it is in possession or it is published or broadcasted. The definition for obscene is likely to corrupt and deprave the audience for which it is intended for instance if there is sexually explicit material, violence or drug taking.

The WarShed act was also introduced and this act was to stop all swearing on programs after 10pm. This was introduced in 1994 as before this you could show anything on television with for example bad language or violence at any time you wanted. In England they put a stop to this so you couldn't show anything with swearing, violence or sexual scenes until 10pm so programs like Family Guy and SouthPark are now not allowed to be shown until after 10pm as this is now called adult time on television. These laws aren't the same in america as they show all these programs whenever they want. In America they show programs like Family Guy and SouthPark at 3pm in the afternoon on Fox as they don't feel the need to ban these programs until after 10pm so they allow these programs to be shown during the daytime but it is only on Fox.

The video recordings act was first introduced in the UK in 1979, this was to stop children at any age being able to walk into a video shop and buy videos at any time. In 1979 this act was introduced so videos would then be rated so children who are around 9-15 year olds can't go and buy a film which is suitable for someone who is 18. With these films such as the Evil Dead what the producers would do is cut out some stuff for the cinema then put it all back in when the film was released on VHS. This was one of the reasons people wanted these films banned as they were not suitable for anyones viewing. Even when the government were trying to get these films banned children had already seen them because they were able to go to the video shop and purchase these films as they didn't have a rating on them and this was another reason behind the whole introducing the ratings onto videos.
In response to the publics concerns about violence in the media which is connected to the murder of the toddler James Bulger in 1993 in which two convicts John Veneables and Robert Thompson had been inspired by child's play 3 in which John Veneables father had rented prior to the murder of Jamie bulger. After this the Laws for Video Nasties were tightened.

As well as this there was the Video Nasties which were films that were not even suitable for people to even watch such as the Evil Dead, Chucky and Natural Born Killers. These were films that had no age range until the video recordings act was brought into action and children who were the age of 9 could go and purchase these films at there local video shop. These films were called Video Nasties, parents thought that these films were the reasons by certain killings which could have been inspired by young kids watching these films. One of the most famous of these disasters was the James Bulger murder which was inspired by younger adults watching Childs Play 3 at very early age and performing Childs Play and the press reported the killers were obsessed with this film. This is one of the reasons that these films are called  Video Nasties and another major disaster which could have been caused by one of these video nasties which was the film The Basketball Diaries (Scott Kalvert) in 1995. This film has been blamed for one of the reasons behind the Columbine Massacre which was a massive school murder where two teenagers went on a massive shooting at the school in 1999. The two teenagers killed 13 people and had more than 20 wounded and this film was then banned from viewing and the film was also banned from being bought in video stores all over Britain. When the film was banned one of the major worries was that most children had already seen this film and this was a major worry amongst the parents of these children.

There is also the Hungerford Massacre, On the 19th of August 1987 in Hungerford, Berkshire a UK unemployed man killed around 16 people including his own mother before committing suicide. Once everything had happened back in 1987 the press reported that the killer was obsessed with the film Rambo first blood, which is described as featuring similar events to what happened in Hungerford. But there is no evidence to support that the killer owned a video player so then this doesn't support the fact that he was obsessed with the film Rambo First Blood. There has never been a firm motive for the killings and it remains one of the worst firearm events in the UK.

The arguments behind the banning of the film concerned the copycat effect. The basic belief is that certain material is likely to induce or uncover criminal tendencies in the susceptible user. Tookey argued that people who saw crash especially those who derived satisfaction from perpetrating and witnessing sadistic and masochistic acts would be encouraged to behave that way by what they saw. He saw the main thesis of the film as being car crashes can be used to promote sexual pleasure. The film was simply a succession of sex scenes relieved by minimal characterisation he maintained. People believed that the copycat effect seek to link major crimes to television and film viewing. They point out that the child's killers in the James Bulger case had seen child's play and that this film was responsible for the Hungerford shootings was influenced by Rambo films and that Stanley Kubrick chose to withdraw A Clockwork Orange because it was inspiring hooliganism in the 1970s.

Natural Born Killers was another film that the governing bodies tried to get banned, there were 3 massive crimes that people have connected with Natural Born Killers. People say that Natural Born Killers triggered violence in the boys who already had predisposition towards it, that it had led to imitation in the choice of specific violent acts. and that it had desensitised them to the pain of their victim the three most commonly argued effects. This horrific murder led to the call for more stricter legislation which was supported by the Newson Report. This was a paper signed 30 psychologists and child experts. In fact the Newson Report was not based on any new research. The subsequent inquiry to the House of Lords refuted the link between the killing and the video was never fully publicised.

The next concerned campaign against the film Natural Born Killers by Oliver Stone, 1994. This is a film that has always caused controversy, John Grisham failed to sue Oliver Stone as partially responsible for the death of a friend shot in a random killing spree. The film was linked to the copycat killings in France and America. The BBFC throughly investigated these links and found the relevant police did not confirm connection before giving the film an 18 certificate. The link has remained in the public imagination and as press orthodoxy and the allegations have acquired the status fact.

Another horrific crime towards Natural Born Killers was the Dunblane Massacre in March 1996, in which Thomas Hamilton opened fire in a primary school killing around 16 children and their teacher, though it was not linked to any particular film or video, this caused the country to look at the culture of imported Hollywood gun violence and films such as Heat (Michael Mann,1995) were heavily criticised. The recent shootings in schools in America (Denver and Colorado) created soul-searching amongst the American press, public and establishment. Another film was The Basketball Diaries (Scott Kalvert) this is a film which shows a fantasy sequence in which a student opens fire on his class mates an this scene was cut by the distribution company for the British video release.

In Conclusion I think that film in the UK should be regulated due to the fact that if it wasn't then we could have lots of crimes happening that have relation to films. Films like Saw and the Human Centerpiede which has been banned from viewing on television or even being released onto DVD. for example that show peoples heads being cut of with machetes and also shows people being torched to there death imagine if these types of films didn't have ratings on them. We could have children from younger ages who aren't suitable for these films getting ideas from these films and performing these murders to there friends. I also think that this benefits games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty to have the ratings 18 although parents will still buy these games for there children for christmas and birthdays it stops children who are at the ages of 9 buying them and that parents probably won't buy these games for there children until the children who play them understand the concept of these games.