Censorship essay

Censorship is used within every part of the media whether it’s films, music on the radio, music videos, on TV or social networking sites. The media contains censorship to prevent certain members of society coming across content which they shouldn’t see or hear. The reason behind this is so the most vulnerable in society aren’t affected by some of the explicit and harsh content that the media share for the public to see. In addition to this, censorship provides security for young people, as they are unaware and oblivious to the dangerous side of the media and the outcomes, as well as being vulnerable. Everything we see or hear in the media influences us and even has the ability to leave us scarred if we happen to see something indecent. Censorship acts as a barrier to what we should and shouldn’t be viewing.

For instance, if you think about censorship in films you’ll notice that there are restrictions, stating whom that film isn’t suitable for. The first one is age ratings. Age ratings exist as there is explicit content shown in many films that are inappropriate for young people. This would include sexual scenes, violence, nudity and bad language. These age ratings suggest that people who are under the age given, shouldn’t watch the film as it may influence them or have an impact on their life. For example, an age rating of a film may be 15 due to the amount of violence is contains. If a person under the age of 15 were to watch it, they may be influenced to use similar violence to deal with situations as that’s what they might consider to be normal. As said, the young are vulnerable and have little understanding between right and wrong. Furthermore, you’ll notice that before a film starts, there is a reminder as to what sort of content it contains. One example is that it’ll recommend people with epilepsy to not watch the film if there is a wide range of flashing images. This kind of censorship is to protect those who would be affected by it, which in this case would be a seizure. Therefore, a reminder is always provided prior to the film starting.

Another type of censorship is the watershed. The watershed is the time when programmes that are regarded as unsuitable for children are shown on TV. After 9pm, all channels are allowed to air programmes containing graphic content. Usually, by 9pm children are in bed so won’t have access to the TV and watch programmes that are inappropriate for them. Anything before 9pm wouldn’t show a lot of violence, horror/gore, swearing, nudity, drug use and many more. If they were to show any of this, it would be pin protected so children couldn’t watch it. Programmes and films containing this kind of content aren’t suitable for children because they are too young to be introduced to it. A child shouldn’t witness drug use on TV as it may influence them to use it later on in life, especially as the media doesn’t give a true representation of the effects of drugs. Children tend to follow in the footsteps of adults as they look up to them. If they are consistently watching programmes that contains foul language and is used in almost every sentence, it’s likely that a child would recognise this as normal and soon pick up from what they’ve learned before doing so themselves. Luckily, due to the watershed, it’s less likely for children to learn the darker side to TV programmes.