Censorship Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Censorship is the process of controlling or evaluating the content of books, films, newspapers, or art in an attempt to comply with social norms. It is usually overseen by a political, religious, or familial authority and sometimes results in the banning of content. It does not evolve with time; rather, this process adjusts itself according to the norms and consensus of a society. Often viewed as a negative, it is not necessarily bad; for instance, society as a whole generally agrees that pornography should not be accessible to minors.

How a society reaches consensus in determining what should be controlled or banned is a much discussed topic. Who should draw the line and determine what is or is not moral? Throughout the centuries, there have been leaders and governments that have controlled the dissemination of information, art, and correspondence, but scholars such as Noam Chomsky believe that even in democratic systems, pressure from well-funded and vocal groups can affect what is communicated in the public sphere.

The Definitions Of Censorship

Censorship as a concept exists in such disciplines as psychoanalysis, law, political science, sociology, ethics, and media studies. Typically, it is defined as either (1) controlling or evaluating the contents of, for instance, a book or movie to be sure it’s appropriate for the relevant audiences, or (2) forbidding or banning information considered by an authorized censor to be subversive, offensive, obscene, heretic, or against the official (often dominant) ideology.

The history of censorship is quite long, and the conditions surrounding its application have changed over time and as countries have evolved culturally. This is why censorship is a social and political issue as much as an ethical one. In a sense, censorship implicitly reveals the moral norms of, and limits set by, a society by banning specific images, words, and representations of situations and events deemed unacceptable to the public. Censorship issues also relate to the various distinctions between the public sphere and private life.

Those who seek total freedom of speech or lack confidence in governmental or religious institutions often contest censorship. Sometimes the media offer examples of censorship that appear to be abusive, unjustified, or the result of a lack of intelligence or artistic sensibility by the local authorities; for example, a movie may be forbidden in a country or a work of art may be refused as part of a gallery exhibit.

Societies exist in part on a foundation of unified thought and belief that allows individuals to live together in general harmony; however, at times, governments or law enforcement may feel the need to enforce that unity against ideas that may cause discontent or protest. To do so, these authorities may decide for the general population whether something is “good” or “bad” for it. Such actions illustrate the differences in taboos and acceptable levels of free speech, expression, and dissent among different governments, cultures, and societies. Government officials or other leaders in a particular society may feel that allowing access to some materials is too dangerous to their regimes or to the continued harmony of a locale, and too inflammatory in its content or in the reactions that it may inspire in the general populace. These officials may believe that the general population is not mentally mature enough or psychologically capable of being exposed to the content without incurring moral or psychological harm, or inciting dissent from a society’s generally accepted rules and norms.

Motion Pictures

Motion pictures have faced censorship to varying degree since their beginnings in the late nineteenth century, but for the most part this existed at the local or state level. In the United States, the Motion Picture Production Code, better known as the Hays Code after its creator William H. Hays, was the first nationwide set of guidelines enumerating what was and was not acceptable material for a motion picture. The self-instituted rules were an attempt by the industry to hold off federal oversight and regulation following the Supreme Court ruling in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915).The justices determined that films were a business and not an art form and, therefore, were not protected under the First Amendment, and local and state censorship bans proliferated in response. The guidelines were in place from 1930 until 1968 and mandated that films could not contain, among other things, any nakedness, interracial marriages, or depictions of homosexuality.

Book Burning

One of the oldest forms of censorship is book burning. According to author Judith Kohl, the earliest case of book burning involved the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, whose scientific works were considered heretical to the established religion of the time and were put to the torch around 450 BCE. This practice intensified with the invention of the printing press in 1435, and books became easily and quickly available to the general public.

In Nazi Germany of the early 1930s, minister of propaganda Josef Goebbels organized public book burnings that included works by Jewish authors such as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Marcel Proust. In Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, Kohl writes that during the Nazi regime, “The works of many non-Jewish but liberal or communist authors were also consumed, including those of Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Arnold and Stefan Zweig, Havelock Ellis, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Émile Zola.”

The Nazis were not the last to organize public book burnings. Kohl writes, “The Islamic revolution in Iran (1979) included the destruction of more than 5 million books.” On February 14, 1989, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a kind of death warrant, after novelist Salman Rushdie wrote in his Satanic Verses that he no longer believed in Islam. Many Muslim communities around the world held public rallies at which copies of the book were burned. It was banned in South Africa and in Rushdie’s native India, and copies were destroyed in many public libraries worldwide. In Berkeley at the University of California, a bookstore that carried the book was firebombed. The events parallel those of Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953, which depicts systematic book burning in a futuristic, totalitarian society.

Purpose Of Censorship

Could society exist without some form of censorship? Would values be protected without any form of control? Some family values groups are concerned about how prevalent violence and obscenity are in the media, and some of the key assessor rounding censorship in the early twenty-first century involve the Internet, where pornography and extremists sites proliferate.

The debate wages internationally. Journalism professor Hussein Amin writes about the situation in Egypt and Arab countries: “Overt censorship and self-censorship are commonplace in the Arab news media today and journalism education programs, just as the media themselves have, in fact, been recruited into a national enterprise for the production of propaganda.” Freedom of the press as defined by most Westerners is not a universal value. According to international freedom of-the-press advocate Reporters Without Borders, Burma, Cuba, the Maldives, the Seychelles, Tunisia, Vietnam, China, Pakistan, and Iran are among the most restrictive in regard to freedom of press.

Censorship After 9/11

The events of September 11, 2001, on the U.S. East Coast were seen live worldwide, and had ripple effects across the globe. For instance, in the Gaza Strip, on September 14, Palestinian officials confiscated a videotape filmed by a U.S. camera operator covering a march of more than a thousand Palestinians celebrating the event while burning an Israeli flag and showing a poster of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The videotape was returned to the Associated Press two days later with portions erased. Also, in the United States, some video game–makers changed the contents of games involving plane crashes and skyscrapers in flames following 9/11 in what may be seen as a form of economic self-censorship, in that they realized the buying public was less likely to buy their products if this content remained.

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American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee. “Video Games.” Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, November 2001, 252.
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