The Importance Of Television Censorship

The government has control of what can be aired and what can’t be aired on radio, TV and media. Should the government censor what we want to watch or hear? The FCC should not censor public television, radio and media. It’s the people’s right to see what they want to see on public television, radio and public media. Censorship violates the First Amendment. Censorship causes the song, movie show whatever it may be to lose its artistic work which causes people to lose interest. People fear indecency to influence their children so they want things censored. Local television networks and radio stations lose money because of censorship. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) which is in charge of what can and can’t be aired on public television,

The First Amendment states that it grants freedom of speech to people. As stated by Ari, “By engaging in censorship, the government violates not only free speech but also the rights to property and freedom of contract” (Armstrong 1). They censor things that don’t really need to be censored and they make the networks, artists, radios and webs change up their shows, movies, songs and websites. Pacifica stated after a monologue, “Carlin is not mouthing obscenities, he is merely using words to satirize as harmless and essentially silly our attitudes towards these words” (Riley 16). The radio station was explaining that he used those words just to emphasize that our attitudes to filthy language is not justified. It’s not justified because most of the time it’s used in context; for example, in sketches in comedy, mostly Hip-Hop and R&B songs, movies that give them meaning and are understood well. But when taken out the meaning is hard to understand. Another example was when members of 2 Live Crew were arrested, “Others were outraged; they felt that the group’s First Amendment rights had been violated” (Riley 21). People were mad because they were arrested for an album with sexual content, dirty words, and promotion of violence towards women. But the arrest was unjustified because they expressed what they felt through music which many artists do. They talk about abuse, drugs, sex, money, killing and

People love to watch television, listen to radio, or do things online whenever they can. When things are censored they tend to lose what made it be good for example explained by Sandra, “Meanwhile, they decided that extensive profanity in in the World War II film Saving Private Ryan was acceptable for air because omitting the expletives would ‘alter...the nature of the artistic work and diminish… the power, realism and immediacy of the film experience for viewers’’’ (Fulton 1). The film lost most of its liveliness due to the censorship regulations by the FCC after they fined PBS over documentary of Hip-Hop and R&B artists with swearing by the artists. Many artists have to re-write their lyrics for popular songs so they can be considered for public radio. Additionally, they sometimes have to add sound effects; such as, bleeps, or a pause to eliminate the profanity of the song on the radio. That causes the song to lose its meaning or the meaning is not understood when being listened on the radio compared to it being listened on the internet or iPod. As said in an article about confinement of networks, “data suggests Americans choose to watch shows that contain more violence and/or inappropriate humor over shows that have to be ‘watered down’ in order to be on broadcast television” (Williams 1). Most people prefer to watch shows that grab their attention with uncensored content which makes a good