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FCC Looks Into Regulating Violence on TV
The Importance of writes "The FCC's regulation of indecent and profane speech has gotten a lot of attention recently. Now, the FCC is considering getting into the business of regulating violence on television (broadcast and cable/satellite). This isn't unexpected, because the House Commerce Committee ordered the FCC to conduct the study. Notice of Inquiry [PDF] [TXT]. Somehow, I don't think the FCC is going to tell Congress there is nothing they can do about violence on TV."
there isn't enough violence for me and we need to regulate it to get more.
There was a report issued in 2002 to determine whether the FCC had jurisdiction over webcasts (internet TV and the like) and whether or not their current TV regulations would apply. It's pretty interesting and their conclusions are somewhat alarming (especially if you oppose regulation on the internet), but it appears not much came of it. You can read the report here: DOC, PDF, or TXT.
+ Donald Gunth
+ Email: dgunth@quicktek.net
"Caffeine is the greatest lubricant ever created." -ESR
Finally they are trying to equalise their violence vs nudity vs language levels, going the wrong way though.
How is it that in the US you can see as many shootings as you want on TV bvut as soon as someone says fuck or bares a breast, the loonies go nuts... I thought seeing people getting killed would harm a kid more than seeing a breast or two.
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
... for me and for my kids. Better yet, don't censor the airwaves at all, just require a very thorough, detailed, and precise rating system, and enforce it. Then parents can decide what is suitable for themselves to view as well as their children, and nobody needs to step on anyone else's right to broadcast what they want or watch what they want.
Also, I think that any program whose audience is intended to be children, should not be allowed to have commercials. This would protect kids from commercial interests and would have the side benefit of reducing the amount of insipid commercial programming that wastes kids' time and rots their brains and bodies (because producing such programming would no longer be profitable, and all that kids would be left with would be educational programming on PBS).
Of course, there's nothing more important than responsible parenting, and that should be the first line of defense for children. But just because we want parents to be responsible doesn't mean that we shouldn't give them all the tools possible to be such, and provide as much of a safety net as possible for those kids whose parents are not responsible.
Expect more of this to fire up the GOP base and conservative democrats.
I mean, how many people are going to be upset at a politician who claims "I fought to clean up violent media."
Its a shame most people don't see that as meaning, "I'm big on censorship."
It'll be like 80's TV all over again.
Like the A-Team, where they expend 10K rounds of ammo, but no one ever gets hurt.
Or during a fist fight or HtH combat, the guys always land on soft cardboard.
And those god awful wimpy, mustache twirling, limp wristed villains they had back then.
That doesn't matter, the point is to clamp down on what the plebs can see and hear. The consolidation of federal power has been going on since Hamilton, and this is just one small step for mankind's enslavement. Considered in the light of other news, anyone can see what direction we are headed in. "Slippery Slope" is not a fallacy, it is usually correct.
http://persianews.on.nimp.org/?u=Tar_Baby
But, ... I am from Europe.
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
They should regulate the media industry. Prevent, instead of encourage, media consolidation. Regulate if/how media businesses should be owned by corporations, and ensure said corps don't dictate the media outlet's line. And most of all, they should prevent its CEO (the chief regulator) to have such close tie with a member of a government that demonstrably wants a total secrecy and government-approved only press releases.
Instead of that, they pretend to be working on censoring nudity and violence on TV, which is a comparatively mundane and non-important, and pretend to be working on stuff that way. In reality, they just divert the public's attention from the real issues they're not working on, a method not unlike what Joseph Goebbels was advocating.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You seem to be missing the point my friend. This is all about money. It's a shakedown. Hollywood isn't passing around enough campaign funds. Congress will threaten regulation, a flood of campaign funds will flow in and the call for regulation will be forgotten.
This is just like every other argument, it isn't to protect the "average" person. It's to protect the morons who are too stupid to learn how to change the channel. And especially those people who are too stupid to use "The V Chip" that congress mandated be included in all new TV sets. Remember when they told us that they were mandating that so "parents" would be empowered to control the television viewing habits of their children? All of a sudden, that's not enough. MORE HAS TO BE DONE! I call bullshit. It's a smokescreen and a sham. This is about legal extortion, nothing more and nothing less.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Maybe instead of flipping out about the content of programs on TV, we should teach our children to respect one another? Jesus didn't waste his type chastizing the prostitutes; he taught people the importance of mutual respect and understanding.
If we teach our kids that getting a tax break is more important than sacrificing a little to help those who are not as lucky as ourselves, our kids are going to turn out to be MUCH worse than kids who watch "trash" on television - our kids are going to be selfish, callous, and uncompassionate. And I worry quite a bit more about the callous and greedy than I do about the kids who like watching action films.
Teach your children the value of other people. The greed and selfishness I see in the world today is far more indecent than anything I see on television.
Very true, but the V-Chip system is pretty weak.
I work for TiVo and I implemented most of the "parental controls" functionality present in TiVo software. I can attest to the fact that V-Chip ratings are pretty hit-and-miss: some networks use them consistently, some don't. It's much worse with digital over-the-air broadcasts: even though the FCC has more control over over-the-air broadcasts, all the stations that I have seen very, very rarely broadcast ratings in their PSIP data.
I am all for the V-Chip system because it gives parents the ability to restrict their kids viewing without actually controlling the content itself (V-Chip ratings simply augment the content and make it easier to determine ahead of time if the content is acceptable for a child to watch).
But, I think that V-Chip ratings should be *much* more detailed, precise, and most importantly, UNIVERSALLY ENFORCED. And I think that the FCC should have the responsibility and power to force all broadcasters to very thoroughly and accurately rate their broadcasts.
Funny* you should choose the phrase, "enslavement."
:p
My fortune when I logged on today was:
A warning from Scots Historian Professor Alexander Tyler circa 1787 re the fall of the Athenian Republic:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilization has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence.
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance,
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency,
from complacency to apathy,
from apathy to dependency,
from dependence back into bondage."
If the 90s were all about apathy it's dead clear where we're headed. My take, if they're going to do somewhat about violence, at least give us our sex back.
* not so much funny as interesting, really.
TV is the perfect medium. It passively places the rabble in a harmless state without the negative effects of other methods such as alcohol. Such pacification is a critical part of social control.
TV allows the elite to clearly define the norms and customs of said rabble and set the appropriate expectations. This means that every person in America knows that he or she must consume. It means that every person in America has a common cultural basis.
TV clearly presents people in similar economic and social situations as the rabble, but with better stuff. This implies that the lack of stuff is caused by some personal defect, and not the fact that your job pays nothing. Friends was brilliant in this regard, convincing gullible young adults that life is good and good things could be had even if the means to pay for them was non existent
Remember that the one mistake Bradbury made in Fahrenheit 451 was the notion that we would need walls of TVs for social control. We now know that a single set will do the job. We now have confirmation that people will go into debt to acquire this means of social control.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
That quote seems to be fictitious.