Regulatory Bodies

REGULATORY BODIES

There are many different smaller sectors within the media sector. These smaller sectors each have their own regulatory body. For example, film is not regulated by the same organisation as advertising. 

All of the media sectors have to be regulated in some sort of way to keep everything in order and make sure that everything is clean for the audience/general public. It is the producers responsibility to make sure that everything they produce and publish meets the requirements and ticks all the boxes. Many different things have to be taken into account when making content for mass audiences, such as target audience, ethnicity, different social classes, under 18's and many more. That last one I mentioned is probably the most important and producers have to be extremely careful as to what they include. They must not include and pornography, foul language, drugs, violence etc. However, the rules are slightly less strict after 9oclock, which is called the 'water shed', meaning that these subjects can be included in moderation. There has to be a separation and a cut off point as to whats appropriate for who. There are also laws that enforce these rules and companies that are seen to be breaking them can face penalties and fines. This could include using content which was created and owned by another person; this is called copyright.

Regulation can also just include making sure that everything that is being broadcast is good content and not just mindless rubbish that will bring down ratings of a show, for example.

OFCOM:

Ofcom (The office of communications) regulates a lot of areas form the media sector:

• TV
• Radio
• Fixed line tele communications
• Mobiles
• Postal services
• Airwaves Wi-fi

Ofcom never watch or listen to any show before it is broadcast, as there is simply too much content to get through and it would be near impossible, so they leave all of their trust with the producer of the show and hope they follow the rules. However, if someone has a complaint to make, they will contact Ofcom. If Ofcom receive many of the same complaint, they will review the show and decide whether anything breaches their regulations. If the show does, then penalties and fines could be put in place and if not then the show will be left alone.

1  Protecting under 18’s

2  Harm and Offence

3  Crime

4  Religion

5  Due impartiality and due accuracy 

     and undue prominence of views and

     opinions

6  Elections and Referendums

7  Fairness

8  Privacy

9  Commercial References in TV

     programming

10 Commercial Communications in Radio

        programming 

The well known Saxgate case, which involved Johnathan Ross and Russell Brand was about radio show, which lead to many complaints and found to have breached multiple sections, such as 'Protecting under 18's', 'Harm and offence' and 'Privacy'. 

BBFC:

British Board of Film Classification - an independent non governmental organisation responsible for classifying Films and games in Britain, funded solely by the Film Industry. 

The BBFC was founded in 1912 and they have the power to cut sections of film out before being shown publicly and they also have the authority to decline films of a rating, meaning that they cannot be distributed legally. The Human Centipede 2, had to be cut down by 2 minutes 37 seconds before it was even allowed to be an 18 age rating.

We have these ratings mainly to protect minors, as they could see something that is harmful or of bad taste and it could seriously affect them so to have an age rating it does offer some regulation however you cannot regulate the internet and minors can find them one way or another.

IPSO:

The PCC (Press Complaints Commission) changed to IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation) in December 2011 after the PCC failed to acknowledge that anything was going on with the phone hacking scandal and did nothing about it. The last straw was when The News Of The World hacked into a girl's phone who had been missing and deleted voice messages to free up space, allowing the girls mother to send more voice messages which they could then quote and publish in their news paper for money. The deleting of messages gave the mother a false hope that her daughter may still be alive. Many people believe that what they did was extremely un-ethical and disgusting. It was also extremely unprofessional and un-tasteful. Many of the people behind the hacking were prosecuted and jailed. It also lead to the closure of that newspaper.

ASA:

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) is responsible for all of the advertising across the British media, which ranges from the TV and radio to billboards. Their job is to make sure that all advertisements are legitimate and do not contain any false information. They also need to make sure that all advertisements do not cause harm and offence or breach the advertising codes. In the year of 2014, over 19 thousand adverts were investigated by ASA. However, just under 4 thousand of those were actually in breach and were either forced to be withdrawn or changed to meet the regulations.

Here is a video from youtube which shows 10 of the 'Most Controversial Adverts' in the UK.

Adverts that are not broadcast have to apply to the CAP code, where as the broadcast ads have to apply to the Ofcom code and if any of them are in breach, then they will be prosecuted accordingly.

Banned adverts are not uncommon, as content creators go over the top and try to bend the rules to create an eye-catching piece. However, sometimes the eye can see too much. For example, this poster below which I have taken from Google appears to show Victoria Beckham fully nude in water with a skin or hair product in her hand. The poster certainly catches the eye, however, it is possibly not what you want your small children looking at as it could convey the wrong messages.This advert was banned in the United Kingdom as it was in breach of their code.

There are many issues surrounding regulatory bodies in the media sector which can be incredibly difficult to tackle sometimes. It is sometimes hard to get the right balance between consumer choice and the freedom of choice, people being entitled to see whatever they want to see. If you're over 18 then surely you can just turn a blind eye to something that may offend you as it's not going to offend everyone. It can also restrict what people can watch or listen to and some organisations won't like this as it is cutting out a huge chunk of potential customers/consumers, it also could anger the consumers as they are being deprived of something they like and want to see.

It all comes down the the idea of, 'In the public interest' and being entitled to the freedom of information. Who decides what is in the public interest and who can watch what? It's an incredibly hard job to predict what the 'social norm' is as it is constantly changing as we live in a very fast paced society.

In recent years, as the internet has become extremely wide-spread and popular, it has become a lot more difficult to censer content. Anyone in the world is only a few clicks away from the latest ISIS beheading video or the Kim Kardashian sex tape.. these uncensored videos are readily available for anyone to see, at any ages. All they need is a computer. One user from the internet stated, "I turned 18 when I turned 13, because that is when I started using the internet." and I personally feel the same way as I have been using the internet for many years now and I am only 17. I know that I personally would be extremely unhappy if I knew my young child had come across an execution video or any of the sort, so my hope for the future is that a better system or organisation for regulating the internet comes about to make it a nicer environment and keep it clean.