Regulatory Bodies

Why does the creative media sector need to be regulated?

The creative  sector needs to be regulated because without it there would be censorship chaos as there would be no restrictions on what could be broadcasted, programmes that glorified violence or sexual violence could be just shown without consequence as there would be no one with the power to deal with the thousands of complaints.That is why several different organisations are created to regulate the different parts of the media sector (Film,TV and radio etc.)

Regulatory Bodies

BBFC

The British Board of Film Classification is a non governmental regulatory organisation, its primary source of funding is from the film industry. Its main job is to classify all films that are to be released in the UK whether in cinema's or as DVD's. They split each category into different age ranges, these age ranges offer a guide to peers and parents as to what films to take kids to see, this is very important as they would not want to expose the kids to the sometimes controversial content of films that are restricted to older ages. Here is a list of the age ranges and explanations as to why they are rated.

U – Universal

A U film can be seen by anyone, they will contain no humor/violence/references that would appeal to those over 4

PG – Parental Guidance

All ages admitted, but certain scenes may be unsuitable for children under 8. PG films may contain some Mild violence or humor although the original release for the Film 'Poltergeist' was a PG it does contain a scene where a man imagines ripping out chunks of his face, the film has since been re-released as a 15.

12A (with an Adult)

 Films under this category are considered to be unsuitable for very young people. It is generally not recommended that children under 12 years should watch the film. Films under this category can contain mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, commonly used milder swear words, and moderate violence or sexual references. The 12A rating is only used for cinema releases as it would require someone under 12 to be with an adult.

12

 Nobody younger than 12 can buy a 12-rated film on DVD or Blue ray. Films in this category may include infrequent drugs, infrequent use of strong language, brief nudity, discreet sexual activity, and moderate violence. sometimes films can stand on the border of being a 12 or 15 as 12 does allow brief nudity and sometimes uses of the word 'Fuck' despite being a stronger for of swearing (however uses must be infrequent) 

15

Only those over 15 years are admitted. Nobody younger than 15 can buy a 15 rated DVD or Blue Ray or see a 15 rated film. Films that are rated 15 can contain frequent adult themes and things like strong language, hard drugs strong violence (with blood) strong sex references but only non detailed sexual activity (nudity is still allowed, normally this is used within a comical aspect).

18

Only adults are admitted. Nobody younger than 18 can watch or but an 18 rated film. There is very limitation to what can be in an 18 film the only things that are not accepted is actual sex portrayed on screen this is normally categorized as porn. Things like hard drug use strong violence/ simulated sexual violence, the strongest language imaginable, and blood and guts galore as Gore isn't generally allowed in films that are lower rated than 18. 

R18

Porn. Basically just porn. Can only be shown or bought from licensed retailers or sex shops and to only adults this category is also the one that demands the most cuts as there has to be some limits to stuff, some films are still made with this content but are all illegal. Although in contrast their are some ultra violent films that just cross to many boundaries and have to be rated R18 for example Cannibal Holocaust which still cannot be bought in the UK without cuts made.

OFCOM

The office of communications is the main regulator of TV and Radio within the UK. They also regulate Fixed Telephone lines/communications/ Mobiles, Postal services and Wifi. They are the organisation that deals with all the complaints with all the above mentioned services.

Their main job is to ensure that the UK maintains its broadband services and all forms of electronic communication, furthermore they also regulate the TV and Radio programmes that are broadcasted by dealing with any complaints that are registered as OFCOM does not watch all programmes that are to broadcasted as this would be impossible as their is just to many programmes that are released in one day let alone a week, they also also regulate that people have their privacy respected in TV and Radio programmes a good example of a programme breaking this rule would be the Sachsgate incident, the Sachsgate controversy involved lewd voice messages left on Andrew Sachs's voice mail by Russel Brand and Johnathon Ross involving an alleged sexual encounter between his granddaughter and Brand. However it is not OFCOM's job to regulate inaccuracies in BBC programmes, or other stuff like the BBC license Fee or anything to do with newspapers or magazines they also do not regulate complaints between a customer and their Television provider.

IPSO

The Independent Press Standards Organisation was established on the 8th of September 2014 after the termination of the PCC after the criticism of its lack of action during the Phone Hacking Scandal.
The IPSO , as Regulator, is charged with enforcing the following Code of Practice here is a list of all the main parts of their codes.
Clause 1 Accuracy
Clause 2 Opportunity to reply
Clause 3 Privacy
Clause 4 Harassment
Clause 5 Intrusion into grief or shock
Clause 6 Children
Clause 7 Children in sex cases
Clause 8 Hospitals
Clause 9 Reporting of crime
Clause 10 Clandestine devices and subterfuge
Clause 11 Victims of sexual assault
Clause 12 Discrimination
Clause 13 Financial journalism
Clause 14 Confidential sources

The IPSO handles complaints, and conducts its own investigations into editorial standards and compliance. It also undertakes monitoring work, including by requiring publications to submit annual compliance reports. IPSO has the power to decide what course of action to take when dealing with a breach of its codes they can impose several punishments an example of one of these sanctions would be a fine, for example if a newspaper published a article that included material that misled readers they could be fined under Clause 1. They can also request that that corrections are made to ensure accuracy.

ASA

The Advertising Standards Authority is the self regulatory organisation in the UK that monitors the advertising standards within the UK. The ASA is a "Non-Statutory" organisation, this means they cannot interpret or actually enforce any legislation. However its own codes of advertising closely mirrors legislation however it is not actually funded by the Government. Its role as described by itself is to "regulate the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK" it achieves this by "investigating "complaints made about ads, sales promotions or direct marketing."
This just means if an advertisement has offended anyone or a company they can lodge a complaint with the ASA and they will check with their rules, if an advert has broken one of their rules they can impose sanctions on the parties responsible for the advert, they can for instance give them bad publicity with their weekly adjudications on its website every Wednesday,They can also order advertisers not to advertise unless the CAP Copy Advice team has seen the advertisement first and allowed the advertisement to go ahead, They can also The office of fair trading (OFT) has powers to fine companies and bring legal actions against them. If the ASA has trouble with a repeat offender, it can refer the matter to the OFT under the Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations 1988.

Consumer Choice

Consumer choice in the media is giving the customers the freedom to listen/watch what they want, the issue with this in terms of regulation is that people want certain areas to be unregulated, it is their right to choose if they want to for example watch a film with the material that was cut from public release, This leads to the job of regulator under fire as they have the rights to believe that its their choice to what they consume in terms of media, this means they don't want to watch something that someone else has tampered with.

Freedom Of Information

Freedom of information lets the public be able to learn what they want to learn, this means that they should have unrestricted access to learning materials, this means all informational material should be open to every single person, however a lot of the public information is regulated, regulated information means that there was a piece of info that breached their personal rules, this is most prominent in productions such as radio programmes, films or TV shows have episodes or themes based of real events, the regulatory bodies will usually have accurate information that they deem inappropriate removed, the content removed could be anything from real names, which would mainly be to prevent witch hunting in the event that the person mentioned did something bad and got away, or to graphic details whether violent or sexually violent. Some people disagree with the regulatory bodies as they believe it is their rights to have access to such information, they compare the regulation to a tyrannical government controlling what they see and can access publicly.

Censorship 

Media censorship ensures that no offensive or potentially harmful content in media productions appears. Every regulatory body is involved in censorship one way or another, this of course depends on what sector of media they regulate. The biggest known censorship is in the film sector of media, films will be viewed and regulated by the BBFC before they are made publicly available, of course films come with a age rating recommending how old someone has to be before they view something, but a film that is aged at 15 may of had some content that bumped it up a age rating, however the director or production company might of specified that they want a 15 rating so as to appeal to a wider audience. Censorship's main job is to protect minors and those who don't want to see explicit content, however the argument is made that censorship shouldn't exist because people want to watch what they want and when they want, however the counter argument is that if there was no regulation on the content of films and TV programmes etc, then their children could be exposed to some explicit content at 10 in the morning and that is wrong as they want to protect their child's innocence.