"How far do changes to the regulation of media reflect broader social changes?"

"How far do changes to the regulation of media reflect broader social changes?"

Regulation is about protection and control. In the United Kingdom an independent non-statutory body called the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) are the official regulators for film. Set up and run by the film industry. Some of the regulatory practices include, censorship, which is completely banning making it unavailable. Classification, where an age rating is enforced. Or cuts are made, to reduce the age rating or make it acceptable for some sort of viewing. Social changes have affected film regulation, by desensitisation. Over the past 30 years society have become less sensitive to things such as violence, sex and other forms of media that is considered harmful. I also believe that the BBFC have become more liberal over the years.

The British board of film classification, have become more liberal over the past 30 years. I believe that the dominant reason for this is because as a society we have become more desensitised. This is a result, mainly because of new technology. Which allows us to watch more films, especially those which have been deemed unacceptable for society. New technology such as streaming services and on-demand films which the bbfc may not be able to keep up with the regulation of these services. This may suggest the reason to why we have become more liberal as society have other forms of viewing the media. Instead of banning films, which gives people an incentive to go and watch it even more, especially the younger viewers. They shouldn’t ban it, but suggest it makes cuts to it. Looking at previous films, especially films under the video nasties in the 1980’s. Films like “The Evil Dead” and “Childs Play”, caused moral panic to society. Moral panic is driven by fear. Parents were concerned with the use of a pencil to stab someone’s foot in the film “The Evil Dead”, as this behaviour is imitable, the copycat theory, especially as children have easy access to pencils. Mary Whitehouse was an activist who wanted to keep social morality, as she noticed a decline.

Contemporary media regulation is a touchy area to get into. As it is very difficult to get the issue of sex and violence across. In today’s day and age, we can see the film “Deadpool”, included a lot of strong language and violence, and yet was given a classification age rating of 15. And if we compare it to another film “50 Shades of grey”, which was given an 18, and it mainly sex scenes with nudity. As a society, it seems to that we react greater to when it is sex that is shown. We have become more desensitised to violence, so which could be why Deadpool received a lower age rating. And since, society isn’t used to seeing that much sex and nudity on films, they react in a certain way. And then again, it does lead to protecting the vulnerable, especially children. If you are going to be protecting children, society would rather protect them from sex than violence. But then again, if we look at the context of Deadpool, it makes sense to why it is accepted. It is based on a graphic novel. But “50 Shades of grey”, seems a bit more provocative and so on. This just goes to show, that the BBFC are more liberal to violence than sex. And they have a stronger conservative view on sex, which is evident by higher classification ratings on films.