Regulation

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Regulation is the censorship and restriction of media texts/ products such as films, music videos and magazines. Its purpose is to classify and rate films so that they may be accessed by the appropriate audience. It is mainly used for the protection of more vulnerable audiences, such as young children and pre-teens against harmful messages or explicit content as they are more impressionable and may imitate or emulate what they see. Additionally, videos from terrorists groups, pornographic websites and some video games that are distributed on the internet may be distressing and too graphic so regulation helps to protect people from harmful messages. Usually they are reserved for people 18 and over. 

In terms of who should be regulating media texts, it’s crucial that it’s someone who is unbiased and doesn’t favour a particular side. Also, those who are in charge of regulating need to be need to be representative of society, meaning they’re diverse in terms of backgrounds, religion or age. When films are being regulated it’s important for them to have multiple viewings so that they understand the message of the film clearly rather than making a judgement solely based on first impressions.

Ultimately, media texts such as video games, films and music videos need to be regulated because as technology advances the content is becoming more realistic and graphic. Video games are played by approximately 1.2 billion people and teenagers and some young children make up that number and they’re part of a vulnerable audience as they may copy the behaviour done on the game and do it in real life. Similarly, in music videos there can be elements of misogyny as women are normally perceived through the male gaze and are objectified. Again, a younger female viewer may see this portrayal and look at the person as a role model and to try to imitate that behaviour in their life.

In the 1980s films such as Evil Dead were deemed ‘video nasties’ although the film barely had any violence in them whereas now a film of the same nature would be rated ‘12’ because of how desensitized we’ve become as an audience. Originally, The Human Centipede 2 was rejected by the BBFC and banned because of the fear it would causes psychological harm however in previous years more people became owners of VCRs and DVD players so the films could be bought and watched in their homes so banning it from being distributed in cinemas became pointless and the film did meet ‘18’ guidelines. 

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