Member Since: 10/5/2005
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Is Censorship necessary anymore?
I. Audience / Intro
Good Afternoon/Morning, my name is Travis, and my research topic for this semester has been questioning “Is Censorship necessary anymore?” Although I’m not specialized on this topic, I personally find the subject to be quite interesting especially as a heavy media and entertainment consumer.
Everyone in this room has been affected by Censorship at some point in our lives. As human beings we like to be entertained in a variety of forms including television, movies, music, video games, and publications, which are all the very targets of Censorship, in which it controls.
Even though I have a centrist view on the matter, today, I’m going to argue that censorship isn’t necessary anymore. The reasons why censorship is unneeded and ineffective in today’s society is because
1. The current accessibility of uncensored and explicit entertainment content
2. There are positive and beneficial aspects to uncensored material
3. The general idea of censorship is unconstitutional, and society is capable of picking their entertainment selections.
II.
First, we live in a society of where a majority of the adults think there children’s eyes and ears are 100% safe from mature content found in entertainment and media. In all actuality, there not.
- In the October 2000 article “Entertainment Industry under attack for selling violence to kids,” this controversial issue of how safeguarded uncensored entertainment materials is addressed. The article showed a study done by the Federal Trade Commission that used teen testers ages 13-16. The commission’s study sent off their testers to see if the entertainment ratings’ system was still upheld by local entertainment retailers. When the results came back, the FTC’s findings shocked the U.S. senate.
- 85% of the testers were able to buy Mature rated video games and/or explicit lyric contented CDs from local media retailers.
- Exactly 50% of the testers were able to enter into “R” rated movies.
- As pointed out in the article, under a supposedly “enforced” code, kids are not to be able to access uncensored entertainment without parental consent.
- Another online article “How effective is censorship,” shows us that not only can kids still obtain uncensored materials from stores, but they can also find it another way, the Internet.
- On the world wide web, anybody can now not only access information in very little to no time at all, but they can now access to major on-line libraries, such as Limewire and Bearclaw for little to no price at all.
- These libraries contain uncensored and explicit movies, documents, music, and games which young children can currently access within just a few minutes and a couple clicks of the mouse. Beyond that point, they can outsmart the adults, and view movies, TV shows, and music that there parents would disapprove of.
- But with all this easily accessed material, some people have been saying that there are benefits to the material being uncensored.
III.
From a book entitled Civil liberties , contributing author Judith Levine brings out the positives of entertainment and media materials being uncensored.
She highlights that non-censored or Mature rated video games can be therapeutic.
- Psychologists have shown within studies that the players are usually in a relaxed state of alertness while playing the video game. This relaxed alertness has gone onto to be used for treatments of attention deficit disorder, depression, and even anxiety.
-It has also been proven that violent video games could rehabilitate people with brain injuries.
- She continues her argument stating that graphically violent video games gives the person behind the controller a play space to “work out fantasies of destruction without destroying anything but the pixels on a screen.”
- The author then claims a final argument claiming that uncensored entertainment and media materials could further one’s knowledge of the real world. She claims that the explicit content found in movies, video games, TV shows could enhance one’s knowledge about sex, violence, drugs, and violence which could then be a beneficial aspect to his or hers’ everyday life.
-But with these benefits of uncensored materials, some are claiming the general idea of censorship is unconstitutional
IV.
- In another online article, “The Case for Censorship,” from the Jewish World Review, an argument that the government censoring materials is unconstitutional is made.
- Author and Censorship expert David Lowenthal, brings insight onto this matter. He brings up the perspective that forcefully censoring publications meaning no physiological harm at all is a violation of the right of the first amendment, the right to free speech.
- Lowenthal also states in particular that the concept also abuses free press when it comes to newspaper publications. He supports that idea by bringing up a few examples, where a college newspaper has been shut down by the school and/or the government, due to its explicit opinionated content.
- He then finally states that “Civil rights should not be shortened in the absence of a clear and present danger to the safety of others.”
V. Conclusion
In closing, censorship just doesn’t block off nudity, explicit language, and violence; it blocks off the positive benefits that are in the media material itself. Along with those factors, our society can already access these uncensored materials, and can make choices for themselves when it comes to their entertainment.
When we allow censorship to happen, we allow it to block away a piece, or a portion of our modern day media entertainment, and we allow it to block off some of our liberties we hold as United States’ citizens. I ask everyone in here to question the next time they find themselves in a situation regarding this issue, Isn’t about time that we censored Censorship instead of our rights as human beings?
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