ntral
lism
sland
Terry Flew
FROM
CENSORSHIP
TO
POLICY:
RETHINKING
MEDIA
CONTENT
REGULATION
AND
CLASSIFICATION
ABSTRACT
Debates about media
content regulation have tended lo bc dominated by
pro-censorship
and anti-
censorship arguments. This paper argues
for a
shift
in
understanding towards
a
more policy-
oriented
and
empirical
approach,
which recognises thjil the field lias been
cluiracterised
not so
much
by the
'prohibition model',
but by
complex
and
mullifaccled techniques
of
institutional
governance,
ami
less
by
censorship than
by
restriction
and
classification.
This has implications
for
the
value
of
empirical research into
thc
relationship between media representations
and
audiences. The recent
ABA
Report
on
content issues with on-line
services
is
considered
in
order
lo show
how
regulation
and
classification
issues are continuing
to be
important
in the
on-line
environment, although they
are
likely
to
take different forms
to the
regulation
of
traditional
media
of
print, film
and
television.
A
number of developments
since
1996
have
prompted renewed
debate
in Australia
about media content regulation and classification policy. The
killing
in
April
1996
of
35 people at the Tasmanian tourist
centre
of Port Arthur by
Martin
Bryant
rekmdlcd
national
concerns
about the
causes
of violence, including thc question of
links
between the portrayal of violence in the electronic media and violent
acts
in
society. Election of the federal Liberal-National Party Coalition government
headed
by
John Howard has led to an expectation, among both
supporters
and critics, that
the government
will
enact
stronger policies toward the
censorship
and classification
of
materials
deemed
to be potentially harmful. There has
also
been
concern about
the forms of material
accessible
to the home through new media such as the
Internet, and about how
parents,
teachers
and
others
can be empowered in
limiting
the
access
of children to such material.
These.concerns
are not unique to Australia,
as
seen
in
concerns
raised in
Britain
about the potential influence of 'video
nasties'
in
die wake of the
killing
of two-year-old
James
Dolger by two 10-year-olds, or the
moves
in the United
States
to
pass
the Communications Decency Act (1996) as a
means
of restricting
access
to 'objectionable' material to the home through the
World
Wide Web — a law which was
subsequently
struck down by the US
Supreme
Court as unconstitutional.
Such
debates
have
led to the
restatement
of
arguments
for and
against
tighter
censorship
of the media.
Pro-censorship
arguments, whether put by individuals
(Manne, 1997) or Parliamentary committees such as the
Senate
Select
Committee
on
Community
Standards
Relevant to the Supply of
Services
Utilising
Electronic
Technologies
(Senate
Select
Committee, 1997) proposed that
there
was an association
between the
repeated
viewing of violent material and
aggressive
behaviour on the
part of individuals. They
also
believed that the combination of such findings, and
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- Fall '19
- Mass Media
