Week 4 - Television, Film and Video Media Reading Diary

This week we began exploring censorship, effects and moral panics involved in media, relating to the research question ‘What do the media do to people?’ Censorship is evident with all aspects of media and is regulated closely to ensure what is published is of a certain censored level appropriate for the audience. It varies for different media products and also by country, which arises questions about how they decide what the country’s viewer is allowed to see.

The lecture for this week began looking into the concepts of moral panics and media effects, the relationship between moral panics, media effects and media regulation, resulting in us examining this relationship through our own studies of the media. We looked into the history of media regulation and media effects, relating to the mods and rockers, which was during the summer of 1964 where the media turned an event into a nation-wide threat and panic. This allowed me to see how media effects the world around us and how the judgements and stereotypes of a specific background can be portrayed in the media to create a large threat. We also looked into the regulators of film and television in the UK and had a look at the areas covered by regulation.

The readings I completed this week were also looking into the power of media and how the audience is effected by what we see/hear. The first reading I looked at was based on the question above ‘What do the media do to people?’ It looked into how media audiences absorb media and what they’re really there for. It noted that there are two things that the media does to the audience, first being that media forms operate as intervening vessels in getting messages and meaning from sender to receiver (Long, T, Wall, P, 2012, p.277) and second relating to semiological and rhetorical models, in which the medium itself is importing in inflecting the message, one where the audience has a role (Long, T, Wall, P, 2012, p.278). The other readings I completed differ from this as they take a more in-depth look into regulation and censorship of the television and film industry rather than the relationship between the audience and media. Bignell’s method to reviewing the UK’s television censorship is to analyse the kinds of image not allowed to appear in television programmes (Bignell, J, 2004, p.230) which would tell us a lot about the television medium. He also looks into the motivations behind cutting out images for censorship, stating that it must be due to a concern about how the image might provoke a response. The final reading was one giving a review of film censorship in both the UK and US, this reading consisted of a discussion of contemporary censorship highlighting the differences and similarities between the UK and US.

This week allowed me to really alter my way of thinking about media audiences and also allowed me to identify ways in which media scholars and media organisations produce media audiences. I gained more knowledge about the fundamental lines of censorship and why regulations are put in place. This will help in my own research as I will be able to analyse the audience more specifically and have a more open minded response when analysing audience texts.

References

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) ‘Producing audiences: what do media do to people?’ IN Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2nd Edition), London: Pearson. pp 274-299

Bignell, J (2004) An Introduction to Television Studies, London: Routledge. pp 229-252

Nelmes, J (1999) An Introduction to Film Studies, 2nd Edition, London: Routledge. pp. 48-53