Media regulation: blog tasks

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 128: Contemporary Media Regulation. Our Media Factsheet archive can be found at M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) What is regulation and why do media industries need to be regulated?

Regulation is the application of rules. Media industries need to be regulated in order to provide a balance of beliefs and opinions.

2) What is OFCOM responsible for?

"The OFice of COMunication (OFCOM) is responsible for regulating
television, radio, telephone services and some aspects of the internet"

3) Look at the section on the OFCOM broadcasting code. Which do you think are the three most important sections of the broadcasting code and why?

Section 1: Protecting the Under-Eighteens -because Children should be protected from seeing certain things in case of coping the behaviour seen.
Section 2: Harm and Offence
Section 3: Crime
Section 4: Religion
Section 5: Impartiality and Undue Prominence of Views and
Opinions
Section 6: Elections and Referendums
Section 7: Fairness-As all sides of a controversy should be taken into consideration.
Section 8: Privacy-Everyone deserves privacy and the deliberate doxxing of celebrities or otherwise can have dangerous consequences.
Section 9: Commercial References in Television Programming

4) Do you agree with OFCOM that Channel 4 was wrong to broadcast 'Wolverine' at 6.55pm on a Sunday evening? Why?

As family friendly films had been played consistently in that time slot before, it is reasonable for them to get a slap on the wrist for showing a violent movie before the watershed. However, it is also ridiculous.
5) List five of the sections in the old Press Complaints Commission's Code of Practice. 

Section 1: Accuracy
Section 2: Opportunity to Reply
Section 3: Privacy*
Section 4: Harassment*
Section 5: Intrusion Into Grief and Shock

6) Why was the Press Complaints Commission criticised?

As the regulations are not statutory, they can do very little about News papers breaking rules.

7) What was the Leveson enquiry and why was it set up?

The Leveson inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson

8) What was the PCC replaced with in 2014?

The IPSO, a company with the same amount of power PCC had.

9) What is your opinion on press regulation? Is a free press an important part of living in a democracy or should newspapers face statutory regulation like TV and radio

Although a free press is crucial for freedom of speech, some of the ways in which the press conduct themselves is disgusting. There should be boundaries that news papers are unable to cross.

10) Why is the internet so difficult to regulate?

The internet isn't only in one country. Although one government may ban a certain thing, there is no rule against someone in another country making a website on said thing.