In today’s society media plays a large role in the how people
receive information about the world surrounding them. The boundaries of ethics,
artistic freedom, and commercial demands are hard to mix to create something
beneficial for everyone involved. Because of this, the argument of what is
ethically acceptable to show in the media is ongoing. Battling between ethics and the ultimate goal
of the media: to entertain and make a profit.
Entertainers often make the argument that to make a profit they
must portray things that some people think are unethical. These things would
include violence and sexual contents that may to be appropriate for every age.
The argument is that they are only producing what the audience wants. Another argument
that entertainers make is that they have their own freedom of speech and should
be able to have their artistic freedom as well. However, how far should they be
allowed to go before they are impeding on the rights of other people.
A moral view of the argument for entertainers to make money on
what they produce is very relevant. However, most people could argue that there
are many people in the entertainment industry that do not cross moral
boundaries in regard to sexual content and violence. So it is not completely
necessary to have sex and violence in media to make money.
However, looking at the entertainers point of view there are
several arguments that come against this. First, not every audience will enjoy
something that does not have any sex appeal or action/violence. Second,
entertainers also have the freedom of speech and artistry and limiting them on
what they can create would impede on their rights.
Because as a society we need to honor everyone’s right to freedom
of speech. With that we also need to protect our venerable population but is
there a way to create rules to please everyone. First, one must establish
ethically sensitive information topics that should be monitored, which would
be: violence, sexual content, foul language, and modesty of actors. These
topics should be censored based on age. Violence should be censored because at
a young age people may not understand that what is displayed on television is
often fictional and over dramatized. They may feel the need to copy the
violence that they saw in the media and do something that they may not
completely understand the ramifications of their actions and who they are
hurting.
Sexual content should be censored, because, depending on the age
of the person he or she may not understand what sex is. This education should
be left up to the parents and teachers of the person not the media. This is
because media often time makes sexual actions look glamorous and “cool.” At a
young age acquiring this view is not good because they do not understand what
the consequences of doing sexual activities can be.
Next is foul language that should be censored. The reason this
should be monitored is because young children when they are first learning
about the world may not understand what this kind of language means. Because of
their ignorance they may choose to repeat what they hear not knowing what, they
are saying.
Last, modesty should be censored in the media. This is because
many people do not want to see someone with hardly any clothes on. When immodest
people are shown in commercials and other forms of media often times it is out
for everyone to see. This is impeding on people’s rights on many levels. First,
for a young child who does not understand their bodies and the body of the
opposite sex. Second, for adults who do not want to see other people’s nude
bodies. This also goes along with sexual content being monitored because young
people may not be educated in that area in the proper way yet.
To censor all of these things there should be a board, independent
from the government, to rate particular television programs and other forms of
media. This board would come up with creative ideas to still be able to have
things were all people are happy. Setting up programs that block children from
seeing things that they should not and making sure that other adults do not
have to watch things they do not want to see. Some of the things they could do
is set up passwords on movies rated PG-13 or higher. For other forms such as
magazines that can make a rule that everything on the front cover has to be
appropriate for all ages. Then all magazine that are rated PG-13 or higher have
to be behind the store counter. Making the purchaser present an identification
card before purchasing.
While there are two sides of the story when it comes to media’s
rights and ethics there are ways to make things better for both parties. As
many will agree our venerable population does not need to be shown things that
they are not ready to see. Also parents and teachers have a certain amount of
responsibility when it comes to educating their children so that they learn
about these sensitive topics in the right way. If everyone works together in
the goal of mentoring who sees what in the media the United States would be a
happy better educated country.
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