Monday 9 February 2015

CENSORSHIP Should terror videos be banned?

This is a question which ultimately leaches into many areas of the debate around media regulation:
  • does it matter if effects cannot be proven? The BBFC explicitly justify their work by arguing that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
  • given that publicity is what such terror organisations as Isis are seeking, should the media self-censor ...
  • ... or be forced to censor the graphic videos that are causing worldwide headlines and making this organisation a global brand?
  • Should OfCom have the power to block (or censure/fine) non-UK media that enable this content over here? Fox News (USA) has caused ripples by re-posting a full, unedited video of a murder ... and this link has been widely passed around and promoted by Isis supporters
  • UK newspapers have embedded extreme
  • Mrs Thatcher memorably used the phrase "oxygen of publicity" to describe what terrorists desired - her solution, when TV regulators (both the IBA, soon scrapped, and the BBC: Death on the Rock and Real Lives rows) refused to bow to enormous pressure (a typical moral panic whipped up by her press supporters), was to ban 'extremists' from being heard on TV/radio
  • media resistance to this led to John Major quietly repealing the law ... will we see a similar approach in 2015 and beyond as clamour grows now for similar action to banish Islamic extermists from the 'airwaves'?
I'll post further links; for now: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/04/fox-news-shows-isis-video-jordan-pilot.

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