From Censorship to Policy: Rethinking Media Content Regulation and Classification

1998 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Flew
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Empirical Approach ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Institutional Governance ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Content Regulation

Debates about media content regulation have tended to be dominated by pro-censorship and anti-censorship arguments. This paper argues for a shift in understanding towards a more policy-oriented and empirical approach, which recognises that the field has been characterised not so much by the ‘prohibition model’, but by complex and multifaceted techniques of institutional governance, and less by censorship than by restriction and classification. This has implications for the value of empirical research into the relationship between media representations and audiences. The recent ABA Report on content issues with on-line services is considered in order to show how regulation and classification issues are continuing to be important in the on-line environment, although they are likely to take different forms to the regulation of traditional media of print, film and television.

scholarly journals In the name of the nation: Media classification, globalisation, and exceptionalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Driscoll ◽  
Liam Grealy
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Motion Picture ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Media Content ◽  
American Films ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Content Regulation ◽  
Motion Picture Association

This article examines the relationship between exceptionalism and nationhood in media classification. The history of age-ratings is an international one, and the present challenges associated with digital media circulation are similarly international. We argue that the nation nevertheless provides an appropriate frame for understanding age-rating by attending to the ways national agencies have struggled to articulate the specificity of their work based on the specificity of domestic constituencies. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, our central examples include the resistance of the Motion Picture Association of America to age-based film classification, the British Board of Film Classification’s examination of American films in the 1980s, contemporary Japanese videogame regulation, and the emergence of the International Age Rating Coalition. We argue that national exceptionalism is itself generalised and that media content regulation is less about producing national culture than about laying claim to a nation by differentiation.

scholarly journals Food sustainability, healthy eating, on-trend diets: media representations of nutrition in Romania and Germany

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-143
Author(s):  
Valentina Marinescu ◽  
Simona Rodat
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Basic Assumption ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
Food And Nutrition ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The importance of nutrition as a research topic is linked not only to healthy eating and different types of medical conditions, such as obesity, allergies, malnutrition, but also to the relationship between nutrition and physical activity, to state’s and large food companies’ commercial activities, as well as to the sustainability of food production. On that basis, numerous studies have analyzed media content related to food and nutrition, their basic assumption being that (new and old) media have the ability to change the audience’s perceptions, behaviors and attitudes towards various values which are accepted in contemporary societies. This paper presents the results of a comparative study of the way in which Romanian and German media cover the topic of nutrition. The research method used was the content analysis, applied to a sample of articles published on online media from the two countries between 2014 and 2016. Having as research objective the identification of the most relevant aspects regarding the content and shape of nutrition’s coverage in media, this article discusses the similarities and differences recorded in the online press of the two countries on the topic of interest. According to the findings, the similarities are mainly related to some topics and subjects addressed, as well as to the ways of covering them, in particular through analysis articles, while the differences could instead be ascertained regarding the content of the articles, including the ways in which the journalists assume social roles in approaching, informing, debating, and educating concerning issues of public interest.

Suicide and the Media

Crisis ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 163-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Warwick Blood ◽  
Jane Pirkis
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Causal Association ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Media Portrayal ◽  
The Media ◽  
Actual Suicide ◽  
Multiple Meanings

Summary: The body of evidence suggests that there is a causal association between nonfictional media reporting of suicide (in newspapers, on television, and in books) and actual suicide, and that there may be one between fictional media portrayal (in film and television, in music, and in plays) and actual suicide. This finding has been explained by social learning theory. The majority of studies upon which this finding is based fall into the media “effects tradition,” which has been criticized for its positivist-like approach that fails to take into account of media content or the capacity of audiences to make meaning out of messages. A cultural studies approach that relies on discourse and frame analyses to explore meanings, and that qualitatively examines the multiple meanings that audiences give to media messages, could complement the effects tradition. Together, these approaches have the potential to clarify the notion of what constitutes responsible reporting of suicide, and to broaden the framework for evaluating media performance.

scholarly journals Online News and Protest Participation in a Political Context: Evidence from Self-Reported Cross-Sectional Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630512098445
Author(s):  
Nora Kirkizh ◽  
Olessia Koltsova
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Online News ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Multilevel Regression ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Internet Media ◽  
The Relationship

Availability of alternative information through social media, in particular, and digital media, in general, is often said to induce social discontent, especially in states where traditional media are under government control. But does this relation really exist, and is it generalizable? This article explores the relationship between self-reported online news consumption and protest participation across 48 nations in 2010–2014. Based on multilevel regression models and simulations, the analysis provides evidence that those respondents who reported that they had attended a protest at least once read news online daily or weekly. The study also shows that the magnitude of the effect varies depending on the political context: surprisingly, despite supposedly unlimited control of offline and online media, autocratic countries demonstrated higher effects of online news than transitional regimes, where the Internet media are relatively uninhibited.

Reactionaries of the lectern: Universalism, anti-empiricism and corporatism in Austrian (and German) social theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-305
Author(s):  
Alan Scott ◽  
Silvia Rief
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Early Manifestation

This article discusses one early manifestation of a recurring theme in social theory and sociology: the relationship between general (‘universal’ or ‘grand’) theory and empirical research. For the early critical theorists, empiricism and positivism were associated with technocratic domination. However, there was one place where the opposite view prevailed: science and empiricism were viewed as forces of social and political progress and speculative social theory as a force of reaction. That place was Red Vienna of the 1920s and early 1930s. We examine how this view came to be widespread among Austro-Marxists, empirical researchers and some members of the Vienna Circle. It focuses on the arguments and institutional power of their opponents: reactionary, universalistic and corporatist social theorists. The debate between Catholic corporatist theory and its empiricist critics is located not merely in Vienna but also within wider debates in the German-speaking world. Finally, we seek to link these lesser-known positions to more familiar strands of social thought, namely, those associated with Weber and, more briefly, Durkheim and Elias.

scholarly journals The Animation of Gamers and the Gamers as Animators in Sierra On-Line’s Adventure Games

Animation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Raz Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Digital Gaming ◽  
Adventure Game ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Software Publisher ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Relationship

Produced throughout the 1980s using the company’s Adventure Game Interpreter engine, the digital adventure games created by American software publisher Sierra On-Line played an important and largely overlooked role in the development of animation as an integral part of the digital gaming experience. While the little historical and theoretical discussion of the company’s games of the era focuses on their genre, it ignores these games’ contribution to the relationship between the animated avatars and the gamers that control them – a relationship that, as argued in this article, in essence turns gamers into animators. If we consider Chris Pallant’s (2019) argument in ‘Video games and animation’ that animation is essential to the sense of immersion within a digital game, then the great freedom provided to the gamers in animating their avatars within Sierra On-Line’s adventure games paved the way to the same sense of immersion in digital. And, if we refer to Gonzalo Frasca’s (1999) divide of digital games to narrative-led or free-play (ludus versus paidea) in ‘Ludology meets narratology: Similitude and differences between (video) games and narrative’, then the company’s adventure games served as an important early example of balance between the two elements through the gamers’ ability to animate their avatars. Furthermore, Sierra On-Line’s adventure games have tapped into the traditional tension between the animator and the character it animated, as observed by Scott Bukatman in ‘The poetics of Slumberland: Animated spirits and the animated spirit (2012), when he challenged the traditional divide between animators, the characters they animate and the audience. All these contributions, as this articles aims to demonstrate, continue to influence the role of animation in digital games to this very day.

scholarly journals Do Women Need Women Representatives?

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosie Campbell ◽  
Sarah Childs ◽  
Joni Lovenduski
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Mass Attitudes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Mass Level

This article analyses the relationship between the representatives and the represented by comparing elite and mass attitudes to gender equality and women’s representation in Britain. In so doing, the authors take up arguments in the recent theoretical literature on representation that question the value of empirical research of Pitkin’s distinction between substantive and descriptive representation. They argue that if men and women have different attitudes at the mass level, which are reproduced amongst political elites, then the numerical under-representation of women may have negative implications for women’s substantive representation. The analysis is conducted on the British Election Study (BES) and the British Representation Study (BRS) series.

Challenger Entry and Voter Learning

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
SANFORD C. GORDON ◽  
GREGORY A. HUBER ◽  
DIMITRI LANDA
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Retrospective Voting ◽  
Positive Assessment ◽  
Threat Of Entry ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Levels

We develop a model of strategic interaction between voters and potential electoral challengers to sitting incumbents, in which the very fact of a costly challenge conveys relevant information to voters. Given incumbent failure in office, challenger entry is more likely, but the threat of entry by inferior challengers creates an incentive for citizens to become more politically informed. At the same time, challenges to incumbents who perform well can neutralize a voter's positive assessment of incumbent qualifications. How a voter becomes politically informed can in turn deter challengers of different levels of competence from running, depending on the electoral environment. The model permits us to sharpen our understanding of retrospective voting, the incumbency advantage, and the relationship between electoral competition and voter welfare, while pointing to new interpretations of, and future avenues for, empirical research on elections.

The American Ghetto, Gangster, and Respect on the Streets of Copenhagen: Media(tion)s between Structure and Street Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162110569
Author(s):  
Hakan Kalkan
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Street Culture ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship

“Street culture” is often considered a response to structural factors. However, the relationship between culture and structure has rarely been empirically analyzed. This article analyzes the role of three media representations of American street culture and gangsters—two films and the music of a rap artist—in the street culture of a disadvantaged part of Copenhagen. Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork, this article demonstrates that these media representations are highly valuable to and influential among young men because of their perceived similarity between their intersectional structural positions and those represented in the media. Thus, the article illuminates the interaction between structural and cultural factors in street culture. It further offers a local explanation of the scarcely studied phenomenon of the influence of mass media on street culture, and a novel, media-based, local explanation of global similarities in different street cultures.

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