SOC284- Lecture 2
January 17, 2014
Censorship
Henry Reichman (2001)
"censorship is the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary,
artistic, or educational materials- of images, ideas and information- on the
grounds that these are morally or otherwise objectionable in light of
standarsd applied by the censor"
^^refer to this as "classic censorship"
questioned raised by this definition:
who can be the censor?- media (i.e. facebook, tv channels, websites and
radio stations all censor what will be shown/heard on their
networks, parents)
how much suppression counts as censorship?-
what counts as speech or expression?
expression in print: books, newspapers, magazines, internet, yard
signs, etc.
spoken expession: at work, personal vs. public, highly regulated
environments such as schools
marketing: advertising, packaging
t-shirts
art and entertainment; movies, music, tv shows, photographs, etc.
political actions; campaign donations, flag burning
Key moments in American censorship
1791- first amendment to constitution
1934- communications act establishes FCC (federal communication ...
responsible for obscene, indecent (socially unacceptable) and profane
(swearing) material
1952: Burstyn vs. Wilson- films critical of religion were not allowed; state film
boards reponsible for reviewing films
supreme court argued that freedom of expressoin should be extended to
movies thus other art forms like music
1966: Freedom of information act- how censorship is kept to a minimum
1972: Miller v. California- established definition of what is obscene
Key points about canadian censorship
1982: Section 1. The Charter guarantees rights and freedoms set out in it
subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be
demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society
Section 2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
freedom of conscience and religion
freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of
the press and other media of communication freedom of peaceful assembly
freedom of association
Section 1 sets limits on rights guaranteed by Section 2
hate speech (willful promotion of hatred; seeks to get people to hate another
idenfiable person/group of people) is criminal in canada but legal in US
CRTC (Canadian equivalent of FCC) does not explicitly regulate broadcast
content for obscenity
canada Border Services Agency enforces censorship of obscenity
i.e. shipments of magazines or dvds would be confiscated (created in US
and imported into Canada)
sharp decline in their role in this regard (mainly due to the internet
because the same material is readily available online)
Obscenity is defined differently than in the US
Canadian criminal code- obscene material contains undue exploitation of
sex and crime or horror or cruelty or violence; specific focus on mixing
of sex and violence in determining what is obscene (based on
presumption that when audience is exposed to mixture of sex and
violence, they develop harmful attitudes and behaviours/ more
accepting of the behaviour)- this becomes specially problematic for
women as they are generally the targets of such att
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