Media Censorship Regulations: A Comparison of UK and USA Policies

This essay undertakes a comparative analysis of media censorship practices in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, focusing primarily on television content. It begins by outlining the regulatory frameworks and recent controversies surrounding censorship in both countries, highlighti...Read More

Media Censorship
Name of the Student: Madan Raj Upreti
Name of the University: Victoria

Censorship is the concealment of discourse, open correspondence, or other data, on the premise
that such material is viewed as shocking, destructive, delicate, and politically wrong or "badly
designed" as dictated by government experts or by group accord. It can be seen that in the
current situation, censorship is connected with Internet radio, Television, books, newspaper and
still it is controversy for the professionals (Fedorov and Levitskaya 2015). This essay will be
focusing the comparison between the censorship of television between UK and USA i.e. United
Kingdom and United States of America. The first idea of the topic is to elucidate the regulations
on censorship with the example of a recent issue on television that has spread controversy over
policies of censorship. The second idea is to understand the different perceptions of censorship
regulations in both the countries. Lastly, the third idea is to understand the extent of set of laws
that is compulsory in the country.
Different countries view the television content as objectionable in nature wherein it is based on
moral, political and religious criterion. The entire procedure of preventing the unsuitable content
from reaching the different audiences is known as the censorship. However, jamming the
different material that is not accepted in nature is known as violation of the freedom of
appearance and expression of the different individuals.
Comparison
Both United States and United Kingdom deals with different kind of complaints from viewers of
television on a day-by-day basis. However, the spectators of United Kingdom complain there is
lack of censorship and in United States, viewers feel that there is huge rate of censorship. There
were different organizations such as Media Watch-United Kingdom had been established as this
helped in applying pressure on regulating the functioning of bodies like BBC and NBC.

Realclearpolitics.com, (2018) has published an article wherein it helped in understanding that
conservatives wanted to ban the magazine named Playboy as there were different violent lyrics
along with offensive depictions of Jesus and this led to different kind of fights such as bans. The
article has helped in analyzing that the topics has to be analyzed in a proper manner that should
not hurt the sentiments of Americans.
On the other side, the United States has different companies such as NCAC that helps in arguing
the set of regulations set on American television are severe in nature. It states that United States
do not permit liberty to implement the different kind of rights that was guaranteed in the first
alteration. Furthermore, it was seen in the respective article, there were different banning of
books in high schools that contained different matters of sexuality. There were more than 49
books as these created issues in the study and mental health of the children in USA (Barnett,
2018). that banned different kind of books in USA wherein It has been seen that censorship is
central issue in television and it is impossible for the different countries to understand the
different methods to deal with the inappropriate materials and how to deal with satisfying
majority of the viewers (Graber and Dunaway 2017).
In the United States of America, the different obscene, profane and indecent in nature broadcasts
are taken in a serious manner. It was also seen that based on the severity of the context, it can be
punishable under the law. In this section, the main idea is to understand the different severities
relating to not following the censorship guidelines in different countries. As per the NBC, the
different enforcement related actions by the way of revoking channels, monetary fines and
warnings could be issued when there is complaint and there is confirmation of violation as well.
The NCAC helps in believing that functional and healthy democracy has been defined, as the

freedom of the communication along with the inability in order to communicate is fatal to the
intellectual growth (Eckert 2017).
The United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is in charge of different regulation
of the commercial channels that includes TV and ITV. The establishment of PCC as overseer of
the communications industries by the act office of communication in the year 2002 that has been
done with combining the different responsibilities of the commission of broadcasting standards.
As per the broadcasting code of PCC, there were different multiple sections that has been
established with proper set of standards for the broadcasting of television. The article has helped
in understanding the different of the materials that is inappropriate in nature wherein there are
different kind of websites were banned as there were different issues in the showcasing of
different programs that blocked different kind of services (STUDENTS FOR LIBERTY, 2018).
From the article, it can be analyzed that such sites need to be banned as to prevent the harm to
children under the 18 years of age along with averting the usage of harmful or offensive
materials from being broadcasted in the television. In general, terms, United Kingdom fines
different kind of programs along with actions for the programs that is blatantly lying in television
(Bertrand and Hughes 2017). However, on the other hand it does not penalize the different
stations for showing politically, religiously content.
Example
The owner of NBS was fined with $550,000 wherein declared the entire act as indecent in nature.
After the respective incident, PCC began to incorporate huge number of fines for obscene
contents and from that particular time, there were different television shows that has been fined

for indecency. This kind of string of massive fines tried to ban different kind of sexually explicit
television shows (Ispreview.co.uk, 2018).
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that both UK and USA will benefit in the future from finding
balanced medium with setting of different strict laws on censorship that will allow for freedom
of speech and expression. The censorship helped in alleviating the society in an effective manner
that helped in reducing the obscene contents from different internet sites and television. It helped
in creating positive impact on the individuals in the entire society.
The biggest concern that is overriding the problems of censorship is profane, obscene and
indecent that affects children along with religious beliefs of individuals in the world. Both USA
and UK are two instances of dissimilar regulatory systems that help in describing the different
necessities of censorship program. It was seen that balance of inappropriateness and
appropriateness has to be taken into accounts with impact of television on the viewers.

References
Barnett, D., 2018. Book bannings on the rise in US schools, says anti-censorship group. [online]
the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/23/book-bannings-
rise-us-censorship [Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].
Bertrand, I. and Hughes, P., 2017. Media research methods: Audiences, institutions, texts.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Eckert, S., 2017. Fighting for recognition: Online abuse of women bloggers in Germany,
Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. New Media & Society,
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Fedorov, A. and Levitskaya, A., 2015. The framework of media education and media criticism in
the contemporary world: the opinion of international experts.
Graber, D.A. and Dunaway, J., 2017. Mass media and American politics. Cq Press.
Ispreview.co.uk., 2018. 2017 Queen's Speech Hints at Strict New UK Internet Censorship Policy
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queens-speech-confirms-strict-new-uk-internet-censorship-policy.html [Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].
Realclearpolitics.com., 2018. Censorship in America | RealClearPolitics. [online] Available at:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/10/14/censorship_in_america_128406.html
[Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].
STUDENTS FOR LIBERTY, 2018. The UK’s dangerous attempt at internet censorship. -
STUDENTS FOR LIBERTY. [online] Available at:

https://www.studentsforliberty.org/2017/07/25/uks-dangerous-attempt-internet-censorship/
[Accessed 13 Mar. 2018].