PRESS INFLUENCE proof of media effects?

these chaps’ media outlets are bombarding your brain with high level right-wing propaganda:

1. Lord Rothermere, a billionaire living in France, owns the Mail, Mail on Sunday, and the Metro.

1. Rupert Murdoch, a billionaire living in Australia, owns the Sun, Sun on Sunday and is the man behind Fox News, BSkyB, News Corp, etc, etc.

1. Alexander and Evgeny (son) Lebedev, an Ex KGB Russian Billionaire, owns The Independent, Independent on Sunday, The Evening Standard.

1. Richard Desmond, a billionaire, owns the Daily Star, Sunday Star, Daily Express, Sunday Express.

1. David and Frederick Barclay, billionaire brothers living on a private island near Saark, own the Telegraph, The Spectator, and the Business.

The Sun, for example, claim to have backed the winner of each general election since the notorious Sun headline, ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’ referring to the 1992 John Major Tory victory.The tabloid had led an increasingly personal campaign against the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock, culminating in the famous election day headline: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.”The same campaign is running against Jeremy Corbyn right here, right now. [SOURCE: thelondoneconomic.com]

Media effects are a controversial topic, hotly debated in academic circles and widely (mis-)applied by pressure groups from both left- and right-wing positions.

Conservative, right-wing politicos, media and campaigners love to lash out at sex and violence in film, music, games and TV, often essentially applying the near-century-old hypodermic syringe model which argued there's a direct link between media content and the views, attitudes and behaviour of those exposed to them.

Despite being the topic of many, many 1000s of academic studies, there still has been no definitive evidence for this. If it were true, why doesn't every Michael Bay filmic violence fest produce millions of new psychopaths roaming the streets? Why hasn't the best-selling Grand Theft Auto series lead to millions of crazed drivers mowing down pedestrians?

There's also the problem of selectively ignoring news content seen as favourable to conservative, right-wing views: graphic (so-called; it's an ideologically loaded term) coverage of terrorist atrocities (with ideological judgements on the scale of importance of lives based on skin and geography), glorifying coverage of military ventures, supposed 'smart' bombs and all.

The left can be just as censorious, seeking restrictions on free speech where this might undermine minorities or the less powerful groups in society. An overlap can be seen with attacks on sexual content as exploiting women and creating negative social attitudes.

On the press, the left, including the commentator linked below, take a more structural approach: the political economy branch of media academic theory.

This focuses on ownership and industry structures including distribution (and concentration of ownership). Chomsky's propaganda model is a classic example.

The article below produces a decent piece of evidence to back argument made, that UK public opinion on political parties and leaders is shaped by press coverage under the direction of non-resident billionaire owners bitterly opposed to any left-wing policies, especially crackdown on tax avoidance, that threaten their comfortable existence and corporate interests.

http://www.thelondoneconomic.com/tle-pick/think-jeremy-corbyn-is-a-loser-oh-dear-youve-been-brainwashed/18/08/

MPAA try to stub out smoking hot topic

The whole basis of the MPAA's voluntary (unlike the BBFC, it doesn't have statutory powers, but its ratings are followed by most major retailers and exhibitors) rating system faces a legal challenge, with the tobacco industry keen to ensure that smoking on screen is ... accessible to children.

Perhaps the classic image of Hollywood glamour, Audrey Hepburn

Human Centipede 2 and BBFC

Initially banned in Australia, then passed with 30 seconds of cuts; initially banned in Britain (as potentially breaching the Obscene Publications Act) - the distributor appealed to the Video Appeals Committee but also proposed limited cuts to the BBFC, who came back with 32 cuts of over 2 mins ... and Bounty/Eureka agreed, and withdrew the appeal. released unrated and uncut in the US, and long available on DVD and Blu-Ray from the US.



Is THIS the most disturbing, dangerous film of recent years?

The BBFC initially banned it, one of only 3 to receive this fate this decade - see the Wiki list of UK banned movies list fragment below.

2011	The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)	Originally banned due to highly explicit sexual violence, graphic forced defecation, and potential obscenity. The film was given an official age certificate of 18 by the BBFC on 6 October 2011 while the distributors agreed to make 32 cuts (two minutes and thirty-seven seconds) prior to release.[73][74][75][76]
2011–present	The Bunny Game	Banned due to extreme levels of sexual violence. The excessive endorsement and eroticisation of sexual violence deemed the film to be unacceptable for its potential for being highly harmful under the Video Recordings Act 1984.[77]
2015–present	Hate Crime	Banned as it focused on "the terrorisation, mutilation, physical and sexual abuse and murder of the members of a Jewish family by the Neo Nazi thugs who invade their home."[78]

ISSUES RAISED:
IS BANNING (not cutting) ACCEPTABLE? SHOULD ADULTS BE ALLOWED TO CHOOSE, WITH BBFC INFORMATION?

IS BANNING EFFECTIVE? (US DVDs, VoD, illegal download, VPNs, etc)

DO BANS SIMPLY PUBLICISE A MOVIE?

IS DISTRIBUTOR/EXHIBITOR FOCUS ON TENTPOLES A GREATER FORM OF CENSORSHIP?

SHOULD SEXUAL VIOLENCE BE SEEN AS EXCEPTIONALLY BAD? DOES THIS OVERLOOK ISSUES WITH GENERAL VIOLENT CINEMA?

IS THE OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS ACT ACCEPTABLE TODAY? HOW CAN OBSCENE BE OBJECTIVELY JUDGED?

BBFC JUDGEMENT, EVEN WITH CUTS, IS BASED ON POTENTIAL HARM - WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE FOR MEDIA EFFECTS?

WOULD AN R18 BE A SUITABLE COMPROMISE?

IS THE BBFC REALLY THE HIDDEN HAND OF THE GOVERNMENT?

DID THE ELECTION OF TORIES IN 2010 CAUSE A SHIFT IN BBFC ATTITUDE?

BBFC DECISIONS CAN BE CHALLENGED THROUGH THE VIDEO APPEALS COMMITTEE (AND OVERTURNED BY LOCAL COUNCILS)

DOES THIS SHOW BBFC IS SUPERIOR TO SECRETIVE MPAA?

MORAL PANIC: PRESS COVERAGE MADE LINK WITH 'TORTURE PORN'; MAIL EVEN LINKED TO 1996 CRASH CONTROVERSY



WIKI SUMMARY:

In June 2011, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) refused to classify The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) for a direct-to-video release, effectively meaning that the film could not legally be supplied in any format in the UK.^[16]The BBFC had given the preceding First Sequence title an 18 certificate.^[17] The board stated that they had considered First Sequence to be "undoubtedly tasteless and disgusting",^[18] but deemed it acceptable for release because the "centipede" was the product of a "revolting medical experiment".^[18] They had also taken legal advice that First Sequence was not in breach of the Obscene Publications Act.^[19] 

By contrast, the BBFC report on Full Sequence stated that the film's content was too extreme for an 18 certificate and was "sexually violent and potentially obscene".^[20] The board members felt that the centipede of Full Sequence existed purely as "the object of the protagonist's depraved sexual fantasy".^[18] They criticised the film for making "little attempt to portray any of the victims... as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience"^[21] and stated their opinion that the film was potentially in breach of the Obscene Publications Act.^[16] The BBFC stated that they would not reclassify the film in the future, as "no amount of cuts would allow them to give it a certificate".^[16] 

Six responded to the BBFC's decision in a statement released the next day to Empire magazine. Six criticised the BBFC for including film spoilers in their report, and stated that the film was "...fictional. Not real. It is all make-belief (sic). It is art..." and that viewers should be able to choose for themselves whether or not they decided to view the film.^[22] Six also referred to the BBFC's refusal to classify the film as "exceptional".^[22][23]In October 2011, the BBFC granted the film an 18 certificate after 32 compulsory cuts totalling 2 minutes and 37 seconds were made. The cuts included: [access the full entry here if you want to read the list; graphic terms are used]

SELECTED QUOTES - each highlights an issue

Company was required to make 32 individual cuts to scenes of sexual and sexualised violence, sadistic violence and humiliation, and a child presented in an abusive and violent context. (BBFC Insight entry, NB: goes on to a short graphic description of cuts)

The BBFC decision has startled many, with some even suggesting that in this new Conservative era, censorship has become politically fashionable once more. (David Cox argues it was a political decision - reflecting Julian Petley's argument that the BBFC does government work without the government being held accountable)

How can it be that adults are not allowed to choose whether or not to see a film? It really felt like Britain was behaving like China. This kind of censorship is ridiculous. ... [M]any British people are becoming furious with this organisation, because they feel that it is treating adults as children.
(Director Tom Six questions the right to restrict adult choice) 

those who want it will do what everyone did when A Clockwork Orange was withdrawn by its director in this country: order an "import" Region 1 DVD online. (David Cox: is film censorship pointless in the digital age?) 

it is unstoppable anyway. In our age of the internet, people will just buy their copies from overseas or download it illegally. The film will be seen in the UK. The BBFC is not of this time. (UK distributor Eureka back Cox's point)

Through their chosen course of action, the BBFC have ensured that the awareness of this film is now greater than it would otherwise have been. (Distributor Eureka say BBFC ban was self-defeating: it actually increased the audience!)

Internet threats might have prevented production:

BBFC PEGI EFFECTS Manhunt for flawed audience research

Do video games make children violent? Nobody knows – and this is why.

FILM EFFECTS Tarantino: Japan violent cinema peaceful society

Interesting point by Quentin Tarantino when pressed on accusations that his films inspire real life violence. Tarantino's trademark style includes explicit violence, often cut to soundtrack music, but he argued that the notion that cinema and civic violence are linked is rendered ridiculous by Japan, with its ultra-violent cinema but low violent crime culture.

The director also addressed his infamous interview with the Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy three years ago, when he lost his cool about a question suggesting a link between violence in his films and violence in real life. Tarantino’s films, including Django Unchained, Reservoir Dogs and now The Hateful Eight, include high levels of violence and brutality. 

“I wasn’t going to give it to him,” he said of Guru-Murthy. “But one of the things that backs up my point is that in the last 25 years, when it comes to industrial societies, hands down the most violent cinema that exists in any one country is Japan. Sometimes grotesquely so. And as we all know, they have the least violent society of all. It’s just right there.”

Politicians and the press, who mutually love a good moral panic, both casually infer this link frequently, as do conservative, pro-censorship campaign groups, but the field of audience effects research, one of the largest in academia, not just Media, has singularly failed to provide any conclusive backing for the notional harms that the likes of the BBFC is set up to protect the public from. The BBFC has addressed this in an interesting interview elsewhere.

Quentin Tarantino: 'It's about damn time' US discussed racist past.

Here's his notorious UK (C4 News) interview:

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.