Censorship- Miss Miller

Introduction- What is censorship?
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other such entities. For example music channels and radio stations have rules and regulations set by Ofcom who control British media and have a duty to protect the public from harmful or offencive material, this means that the radio stations and music channels would have to make sure there isn't any harmful language used in any music they play, if the music is harmful they must block out the harmful language this is censorship.

This post will show different opinions and ideas that groups of people who listen to music have on censorship, for example I will be discussing the points made by music artists and parents that are for the use of censorship in music.

Artists- The general view of artists on censorship is a negative one, many belive that their music should be played to the public as it was made, and that people that agree with censorship simply shouldn't listen to the music if it offends them. Freemuse is an independent membership organisation advocating and defending freedom of expression for musicians and composers worldwide. This organisation is against censorship of music and was set up by musicians who feel the same way. This shows how musicians feel about the censorship of their music and how they feel that it is a human right to be able to express themselves through their music. Artists do not feel responsible for parents being upset with the sometimes explicit nature of their music and they feel it should be their responsibility to stop their children listening to it if they feel that way.

Record labels- Record labels do not tend to have a strong opinion of the censorship of their artists music, for example they feel that if their artists can make more money if their song is censored on the radio then they should just censor the song, this gives them a larger audience for their artists. But music labels do not force their artists to make music that isn't explicit or offencive as they do not want to put people who like the raw material of their artists to be put off of them.

Parents for censorship- Parents that are for the censorship of music on radios and music channels belive that they shouldn't have to worry about their child being exposed to this language and that it should be the duty of care to all listeners that radio stations censor the offencive language before the watershed. Also another belief by parents is that artists should see themselves as role models to children that may be impressionable to bad language, and that they should consider that using bad language in their music isn't always necessary. Censorship stops parents being worried about listening to the radio in case of swearing and lets them and their child enjoy artists music without being offended by bad language.

Parents against censorship- parents that are against censorship feel that people who want to listen to music should be allowed to at their own will, and that parents should be competent enough to teach their child that offencive language isn't acceptable to use, they also feel that it is very hard to stop children from listening to offencive music if they really want to anyway, as children are getting better at a younger age when using the Internet where uncensored music is widely available. Many parents also feel that uncensored music wouldn't have an adverse effect on the behaviour of children anyway especially as some children are exposed to bad language at home or in public.

Fans of the artists- The wide majority of fans feel that music should be played as the artists intended it to be, so without censorship, they feel this way because they have come to like the artists music without censorship, and they want more people to enjoy the same artist as them, and if the only music potential new fans can listen to is censored music then they might not become a fan of the artist.

Music channels- Music channels a very strict about keeping to the rules that Ofcom set for them, for example they censor music that has explicit language in it, and they do it until the 9pm watershed. Some music channels feel that music shouldn't have to be censored but they all keep to the rules as they don't want to lose audiences and money.

Radio channels- Like many music channels popular radio stations are for censorship of music as they feel that it will protect the general public from unnecessarily hearing bad language, this will also give them a larger audience as parents know its safe to listen to these radio stations with their children. Radio stations still keep to the 9pm watershed and some specifically play music that contains explicit language, this keeps all listeners happy with the radio stations as they are reaching a balance between censored and uncensored music.

Conclusion- 

In conclusion I feel that the way music is censored in today's society is very adequate, as it allows a balance for censored and uncensored music, so people for and against are happy when listening to music. This balance is achieved with the use of the watershed, this allows people to know that explicit music is going to be played, and people who don't want to listen, do not listen to it, and those that like explicit music listen after 9 PM. The debate about weather explicit music is harmful or not isn't relevant as some parents simply do not want their children to be exposed to explicit language weather it is harmful to them or not.