Television Censorship Essay -- Media

Television Censorship Censorship in television is a very debatable topic in today’s media and social realms. Nowadays what is considered appropriate by many may actually be considered explicit or unsuitable by the people in charge. Some may wonder ‘who is deemed so highly that they can decide what is and is not appropriate to watch. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is ‘responsible for administratively enforcing the law that governs what is and is not appropriate. Within this article I will discuss how the FCC decides what the American viewers are allowed to see. The first example the FCC regulates on television is called ‘obscene broadcasts’. According to the FCC obscene speech in not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time. To be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test: Â · An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; Â · The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically def...