Censorship-Miss Miller

Censorship Miss Miller

Many things are held back from general public viewing as the content is seen as being offensive or explicit. Companies can censor media by completely removing offense parts, blurring images, re-singing or bleeping out sounds to make them appropriate. The organisation that controls and regulates the UK censorship is Ofcom who control the television and radio. The main people who this is designed to protect is children who are deemed to young to be shown graphic,violent or offensive material which could damage them. However censoring is also put in place for adults who do not wish to be exposed to certain materials. Although there is the argument that if a child wanted to see offence material they could easily view it through the internet,  for example the artist Eminem when has younger listened to offensive material, which could be seen to have inspired him.

There are many reasons why the radio stations are for censorship in their songs, depending on their target audience. For example Capital FM who has an average viewer number of 7.1 million and has an audience made up of people 14-34. With such a young audience they would want to censor their songs as many of their viewers are younger than 18, and make up a large amount of their audience. An example of a song which was censored was by Eminem in 2000 with the song "The real slim shady" which had the lyric "Well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too!". One point is that with censorship radio stations will have a larger audience as younger people will also be able to listen without their parents limiting what they listen to you. If censorship was not included many radio stations which play the latest music would have a much lower audience as they rely on their younger target audience for much of their viewers.

 Another reason is that they would likely have many more complaints from listeners than they would have if censorship was in place. As complaints would not help the brand image of the radio station this would be a negative thing. For example MTV do not play the word "suicide" as it may not be acceptable to some people for public viewing. However there are reasons as to why radio stations should not be censored. One reason is that they will have a much bigger selection of songs that could be played if there was no censorship, this would be especially helpful with rap and rock which often use offensive language.  This would please more listeners and would attract them to the radio station as they play a wider variety of songs. A second possible reason is that it may limit the entertainment value of the song if they are censored, so radio should not be censored as it may not live up to the expectations of listeners. Again an example with MTV is that they replace gun shot sounds in their videos as this could be seen as promoting violence.  If radio was censored then it would lose listeners as they would want to listen to the original version as they want to listen to what the artist meant there songs to be.

Artists can also be both for and against censorship depending on their personal opinion.. One aspect is that he freedom of speech of the artist is being limited with censorship in that they cannot say what they want. For example Eminem who uses extreme lyrics such as the use of the words "hoes" and "fucking", and believes that it is the parents responsibility for limiting what there children hear. This could upset the artist and the fans in that the artist cannot express his views and the fans cannot hear what the artist really want to say, due to a limited number of people being offended. Furthermore the artists creativity may be limited due to them not being able to use the words that they want. This may annoy the artist in that they may not be able to perform the songs as well knowing that they will be censored and the emotion will not be in the song. Another example is Rihanna with her song S&M which has the lyrics " chains and whips excite me" which can be seen as very inappropriate for young listeners,  However some artists may want to have censorship, a possible cause is that so they can have younger fans which can help their career. This will make them bigger than if they were only for a mature audience.  However this depends on the artist they are, a boy band such as One Direction will have no need for censorship whereas a band like Arctic Monkeys will due to their target audience. However most artists see that censorship is needed to protect children against certain music.

Parents can also be for and against music to be censorship. Some parents believe that censorship is needed, mainly due to them not wanting their children to be exposed to explicit or offensive. If their children were to have listened to offensive material then it could damage them and it would be the parents jobs to help them . Furthermore they could possibly replicate dangerous activities that they could hear, such things can be heard in songs. For example in a Eminem song he talks about "hanging himself" , which is clearly not suitable for children.  This could have easily been fixed if censorship was available  However the argument can also go the other way and some parents agree that it is the individual parents responsibility to limit what the child has access to , which eliminates the need for censorship. This is a popular opinion with artist as they want to have the creative freedom to produce whatever they want with their lyrics. However this can also be the problem as if something is censored and not allowed for the child then it becomes more intriguing and curious for the children.This would lead them to finding out what was censored anyway, which makes censorship seem pointless and as Eminem has said "I watched offensive stuff as a kid" and he wasn't allowed to watch it.

Fans:
With fans there is a big problem as they want to hear the artists music in the way that the artist intended
to, which would be fine if all of an artists audience was adult. However many artists have very young fans and they will be subjected to censorship normally, although if they went to see them at a concert or festival they would see their artist with no censorship. This is why festivals such as Glastonbury have an age limit of 16 if the people are unaccompanied by an adult, however many fans do not want children present as it may be a possible reasons or their artist to censor some songs.

Record Labels :

Overall all record labels are trying to do is make more sales and in turn more profit, from this they will want to have censorship as it will get the maximum amount of possible viewers. This may work with some artist who are aimed more towards younger audiences for example with a boy band like one direction , but with a rapper such as Eminem who uses personal experiences and very adult material it may not work. For example with his song Stan it has themes of suicide and domestic violence in the lyrics which are very unsuitable with younger people. However the record labels have allowed this as it is so personal to Eminem that they have a certainty it will sell, and that people will understand and not be offended. However it could be seen that record labels do not want censorship as this will keep their artists happy and they will be able to keep them longer and make more money from them. This would make it easier to market them for their target audience if they had creative freedom.

Overall it is clear that the stronger case is for censorship rather than against, with the main purpose in protecting children from things such as extreme language and inappropriate subjects. This also enables both the radio stations and artists to have a bigger audience which will benefit them both in making more money, however it does limit their creativity. Parents believe overall that it is the job of the record company to protect their children , however there are some exceptions. The only possible argument against is that it is the job of the individual parent to protect their children and not another persons responsibility. Overall I believe that censorship should be done by the parent and that eventually everyone will hear what was censored, and they can find it if they look for it. So in conclusion I will not be using censorship in my own video and we will have swearing if it is appropriate for the scene, but not use it unnecessarily.