Censorship & Media

Issues and Effects

1st Amendment to the United States Constitution:RAPPS!!!!!

• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or

prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of

the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

the Government for a redress of grievances.

Censorship Definition

• Basically, censorship is simply the act of removing or forbidding

anything that a controlling body deems to be offensive or

objectionable in some way.• However, censorship can eventually lead to “outlawed”

• *Most people believe in the right to free speech, but debate whether it should cover flag-burning, hard-core rap and heavy-metal lyrics, tobacco advertising, hate speech, pornography, nude dancing, solicitation and various forms of symbolic speech. Many would agree to limiting some forms of free expression.

• *Freedom of speech doesn’t give blanket protection to some things—

• ·        Yelling fire in a theater• ·        Airing pornography on network tv or obscene

material• ·        Harassing people

Is censorship ever “good?”• Censorship:• ·        Can be used to protect people/interests in

matters of national security/inappropriate material for children

• ·        However, it can also be used as a means of suppression/agenda setting

• ·        Some artists feel that it is an infringement upon their rights

• ·        It removes freedom of choice in some cases

FREE SPEECH

• *Free speech can be interpreted to mean symbolic speech or expression.

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Intellectual Freedom• “Intellectual Freedom is the right of every

individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas.”--ALA

Intellectual Freedom• "If there is a bedrock principle

underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."--Supreme Court Justice William Brennan

• *Boundaries of acceptance change with culture—Elvis, cursing, etc.

• Elvis on Ed Sullivan—1957—to avoid seeing his gyrating pelvis, Sullivan ordered the cameras to shoot him only from the waist up

• Double beds in married couples rooms

• Acceptance of curse words on Friends

• NYPD’s use of language and nudity

Obscenity• ·        Miller Test (Supreme Court 1973):

• Before sexual material can be judged obscene and therefore unprotected by the First Amendment, a judge or jury must determine: 1. that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest; 2. that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable law; and 3. that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.

• PIPO AND SLAPV!!!!!!!

Obscenity• “ Obscene material is material which deals with

sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest..” –Justice Brennan.

• The Court defined material appealing to prurient interest as ''material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts,'' and defined prurient interest as ''a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion.''

• So THAT’s what prurient interest means!

• FCC—Federal Communications Commission; government agency responsible for overseeing content of network radio/TV programming

• Janet Jackson Superbowl "wardrobe malfunction" aired on CBS. MTV produced the show. Both MTV and CBS are owned by media conglomerate Viacom. The maximum fine that could be levied by the FCC at the time was $27,500. Congress passed special legislation (The Broadcast Decency Act) and raised the fine to $550,000.Did you know that fines for indecent programming exceeded $7.7 million in 2004? The total was only $48,000 in 2000.

Indecent material--cannot be shown between 6 am & 10 pm on network television.Obscene material cannot be broadcast at any time (networks only).

• ·Profanity-- a word choice or usage which many consider to be offensive.

Profanity &^%a*!!

• Profanity-- The original meaning of the term was restricted to

blasphemy, sacrilege or taking God's name in vain (profane

speech, or swear word), especially expressions such as "God d**n it",

"go to Hell", and "d**n you".

Profanity &^%a*!!

• However, the meaning has been extended to include scatological, sexist, homophobic,

racist, or sexual terms.

• The FCC has ruled that profane language could not be broadcast "at times of day

when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience."

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What are the five main freedoms for which the 1st amendment provides? Hint:

RAPPS!

• What are the three conditions of the Miller Obscenity Test? Hint: POPI & SLAPV!

Did you know?• *Prayer is allowed in school with some restrictions.

*The American Civil Liberties Union was created to assist people who feel their civil rights have been violated.*Banned Books Week is recognized during September.*Smith Act of 1940--also known as the Alien Registration Act*McCarran Act of 1950 was used by Senator JoeMcCarthy to "weed out" communists.

Banned Books• Distribution of the Bible is banned in Saudi

Arabia.

• The Bible was banned for a long time in the Soviet Union.

• Harry Potter series

• Where’s Waldo?

• The Outsiders

• Goosebumps series

Banned Books

• The Savannah Morning News reported in November 1999 that a teacher at the Windsor Forest High School required seniors to obtain permission slips before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth or King Lear. The teacher's school board had pulled the books from class reading lists, citing "adult language" and references to sex and violence.

Most Frequently Banned Books• Bridge to Terabithia

• The Catcher in the Rye

• How to Eat Fried Worms

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

• Lord of the Flies

• Of Mice and Men

• Harriet the Spy

Reasons Given:• "garbage being passed off as literature"

• "glorified Satan”

• “encourages children to disobey”

• "if there is a possibility something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it"

Reasons Given:• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings--

Objections center on the description of a rape she suffered as a child.

• Bridge to Terabithia--"profanity, disrespect of adults, and an elaborate fantasy world that might lead to confusion."

• Catcher in the Rye--It has been challenged for graphic language since its publication.

Fall 2006 Banned Books:1. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, by Harper Lee

2. GEOGRAPHY CLUB, by Brent Hartinger

3. THE GIVER, by Lois Lowry

4. THE STORY OF LITTLE BLACK SAMBO, by Helen Bannerman, Christopher H. Bing (Illus.)

5. THE BLUEST EYE, by Toni Morrison

6. BRAVE NEW WORLD, by Aldous Huxley

7. FOREVER, by Judy Blume

8. HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE, by J.K. Rowling

2006 Banned Books Con’t:9. WE, by Yevgeny Zamyatin

10. WHALE TALK, by Chris Crutcher

If you’d like to know what these books are about, visit:

http://news.bookweb.org/booksense/4639.html

Banned Films

• The Great Dictator--banned in Hitler’s Germany

• Ben-Hur--banned in China for "propaganda of superstitious beliefs, namely Christianity."

• Matrix Reloaded--banned in Egypt

Clear Channel’s List of Post 9-11 No-No’s

• U2 "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

• Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls Of Fire"

• Drowning Pool "Bodies"

• Louis Armstrong: "What A Wonderful World"

• Rage Against The Machine: every single song

• Martha & the Vandellas: "Dancing In The Streets"

• Led Zeppelin "Stairway To Heaven"

Banned Songs--50’s & 60’s

• Dean Martin--Wham Bam, Thank You, Ma’am

• Rosemary Clooney--Mambo Italiano

• The Kingsmen--Louie, Louie (attempted)

• TRS--Satisfaction

• Van Morrison--Brown-Eyed Girl

Banned Songs--70’s & 80’s

• Loretta Lynn--The Pill

• John Denver--Rocky Mountain High

• George Michael--I Want Your Sex

• Olivia Newton-John--Physical

Banned Songs--90’s & 2000’s

• 2 Live Crew—Nasty As They Wanna Be album

• Ice Cube--Death Certificate

• Madonna--Justify My Love

• Ice T--Cop Killer

• Eminem--My Name Is

• Eminem--The Real Slim Shady

Food for Thought• Police officers in Northwood, Ohio, order

14-year-old Daniel Shellhammer to remove his shirt, which features slogans for the rap group Insane Clown Posse. The officers inform Shellhammer that Insane Clown Posse clothing is "banned" in Ohio and that they tear the shirt off his back and arrest him if he does not comply.

Food for Thought• A federal court ruled that a student is not

permitted to wear an Insane Clown Posse t-shirt to school, saying it is disruptive. The school principal says the t-shirt is not the issue, but the philosophies the band represents.

Food for Thought• A private school in San Antonio, Texas,

suspends four students for attending a Backstreet Boys concert in March. The students are suspended for one day for violating a school policy forbidding "involvement in inappropriate music [or] dancing."

Food for Thought• MTV pulls the video for Madonna’s “What

It Feels Like for a Girl” because of the video’s depiction of violence.

• MTV decides to air the popular tune “Because I Got High”—but only in certain day parts because of its drug theme. The network says it will not air the video during its popular teen show, “Total Request Live.”

Food for Thought

• Administrators at schools in Bethesda, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California move to ban “freak dancing” at school functions, which they consider disruptive and vulgar.

Questions to Ponder

• What role does censorship play in our society?

• How does censorship affect the individual?

• Have entertainment media crossed the line into obscenity/harm to children?

• What are your personal views on censorship?

• What would you fight for/against?

• 1 minute stretch break!

• Go, go, go!

• Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch!!