How well does contemporary media regulation protect the public essay

There are three media regulators for three types of media. BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) regulates films, OFCOM (Office of Communication) regulates television and PEGI (Pan European Game Information) regulates games.

The BBFC can be effective because it uses age rating certificates to control what ages can watch a particular film according to the guideline of what content- violence, strong language etc. is appropriate for what age. The certificates are U, PG, 12A, 15 and 18. They also research the attitudes of people watching films because society become desensitized as they have seen the same thing before in other films so they become used to seeing it. For example, the film, “the Wild One” was banned when it was released in 1953 but if we watched it nowadays we would think the film would be a 12 age rating as the content that seemed   For example, the film, and “the hunger games” has a lot of violent scenes but because of the context, the violence is acceptable. It was going to be a 15 but they cut seconds of gore out of the violent scenes to make it a 12A. The age ratings can help parents decide what film is appropriate for their children to watch as if there wasn’t an age rating to judge by, they wouldn’t know what content is in the film that their children want to watch. On the other hand, the BBFC can be seen as not being as effective because you can access films online and some films online could be banned like the film “the Human Centipede”. This film is an 18 is some countries and in the UK it is banned. When watching films online, you don’t need to show that you are the right age to watch the film. BBFC can do nothing if a parent or older friend purchases the DVD, and allows a younger audience member to watch the film that is not age appropriate.

OFCOM deals with any complaints that are made with programmes shown on the TV that could be offensive to the viewers. For example, the TV show “Big Brother” gets thousands of complaints as it is not scripted so they don’t know what the people in the show will say as it is live and they are a re-active body. They decide what parts to put on TV so if the show keeps showing extreme offensive content to viewers they can give the company a warning and fine them.  They have programs that are for older viewers shown on television at a later time as the younger people are more likely to be in bed at that time so they won’t be able to watch it. However, they receive complaints after an episode has been aired so it is too late to cut anything out of the episode.

PEGI regulates by giving age certificates. They are a pro-active body so they inspect the content of the game before it is released. For example, the game “Grand Theft Auto” is rated an 18 as it includes a lot of violence as in one part there is a mission where a man is interrogated and tortured. Violent games are blamed for any dangerous behaviour of children that play these type of games. In an article, it said that GTA influenced someone to be violent as they were re-enacting a part in the game so this copycat theory can be dangerous if people can be easily influenced from the media.

In conclusion, it can be argued that we need to be shown violence in media as it is real life and it could help us understand the world we live in that has this kind of violence. I think that BBFC is the most effective when films are seen at the cinema because it is easy to control who can watch it as you can be asked for ID to see if you are the right age to watch the film. But I don’t think the BBFC is very effective when films are shown on the TV, DVD’s and online films can be watched by any age. I don’t think that OFCOM is very effective as they don’t have a lot of control over who watches the TV show. In the future, I think the regulators will be even more flexible as we will be desensitized to what we see today making the age restrictions not as strict.