censorship

Censorship is the covering up of content deemed to be explicit or offensive, censorship is used to protect younger children from seeing material they may not be mentally prepared for, there are multiple methods of censoring music including bleeping over the words, changing the lyrics, silencing the words or repeating the previous word before, it is used to stop artists from causing offence and stops under age children from seeing content that is not appropriate, another alternative to censorship is to put the music past the watershed hour of nine o'clock in which children are unlikely to be watching music channels/listening to the radio and therefore explicit music/videos are shown, explicit content usually involves things such as smoking, drinking, drugs, sex, stealing and gambling.

Ofcom are the regulator and competition authority for UK communication industries. It is focused on TV and radio, fixed line telecoms, mobile phones, postal services and the airwaves which wireless devices use, they protect people who use these devices from coming across material that may cause offence to them.

Cee lo greens 'Fuck you' was censored for its explicit language and was changed to 'forget you', in which some lyrics were changed to cleaner content, this allowed fans of all ages to listen to his music and be abel to enjoy it and also allowed his song to be publicised on big radios such as capital and channels such as MTV. Eminems 'guilty conscience' featuring dr dre was censored on MTV due to the video involving robbery, date rape and murder, part of the video was removed and then shown on MTV with only the part involving murder being taken away, both were deemed offensive and not appropriate material for young, impressionable children.

The artist, Rhianna is against censorship, she feels it doesn't allow her to express herself in her music and really show of her character, this means kids will believe they shouldn't show what they are really like and hide their true feelings which will lead to depression and mental health issues, she also feels her music needs to be shocking to make it memorable and get it lots of publicity, meaning it is more likely to be successful and make her a bigger artist, not all her videos are explicit and she only has questionable content in certain videos. Her S&M video was banned in multiple countries and censored on radio, restricting the gloabalisation of her song and making it difficult for her to become popular over the world, she shows that she believes censorship is out of hand by wearing a top saying 'censored', almost mocking the idea of it and taking away the ability for others to censor that.

The record label Roc label are against censorship, they own massive artists in the world of music like Jay Z and Rhianna, they feel it is a breach of artistic integrity and takes away the true meaning and message of the song, it prevents record sales as younger people cannot buy them and it prevents the artists from widening their audience, the more controversial the video, the more publicity gained and therefore the more people see/hear the song and therefore the artist becomes more well known, Rhianna already has a controversial image and needs to keep up her appearance to please her fans, the songs do not only allow artists to express themselves but also narrate their lifes, if it is censored it is not the same story and wont be as hard hitting, Rhianna is so big now that she is influencing the way pop is developing and perceived and therefore should be able to do what she wants to help progress music.

Parents that disagree with censorship argue that the uncensored versions are still easily accessible to children on the internet and will not stop them from watching it and will merely increase their curiosity and will make them really want to watch it, possibly making the music influence them more than it usually would, they believe that things such as nudity (which are censored) are natural and should be celebrated, not censored and will make children believe sex is wrong which can have a negative effect on them, children have a mind of their own and are smarter than they are given credit for and have their own mind, just because they see it on telly it doesn't mean they will go around doing it, most children have their own, strong, independent mid set already at a young age and this will not be changed by a video. In the UK 10,000 people smoke out of 64.1 million, therefore if kids were that impressionable there would be millions more smoking due to kids seeing it everyday, also the censorship of drug taking is unreasonable as well, it just informs them of the dangers of the world and will prepare them for when they see it in real life, which is inevitable as 1.58 million people smoke it, artists songs can bring across important messages for children and censorship manipulates and stops the message from helping people, also Rhiannas target audience are 16 year olds, by that age you will already have a strong mind set, this is evidently the governments belief as well as you can go to jail at the age of ten, meaning that by that age it is believed you should be in control of your own actions and gambling (which is censored) is legal in the form of scratch cards, it has been found that only 2% of 12-16 year old children exposed to gambling gain an addiction, this means the majority will not be effected also drugs, which are censored are legal at certain festivals and therefore it is slightly hypocritical for them to be censored in music videos.

Parents that agree with censorship believe that sexual content, drugs, explicit language and nudity as things that parents believed should definitely be censored results from a survey of 1000 parents found, children are influenced by artists which act as role models, e.g miley cyrus grew up as an actor on childrens shows (hannah montana) and children identified and held her as a role model and now she is involved in lots of explicit content which could make children imitate her and try to be like her, lots of artists show their musical talent off without the need of explicit content, if they were truly talented artists they would't need all this material that is harmful to children, if there is no censorship the parents will not be able to protect their child from this unsuitable material and will be played everywhere, at least with censorship the parents can know that their children will not hear swearing and offensive language on the radio whilst they are out, also parents do not want their children copying some of the language sung by artists, as they can unknowingly cause offence, not knowing the true meaning of the words they are saying, songs based around sex and drugs has affected the generation growing up with that music around them, makes children believe drugs are fine and normal and that they should be taking them without worry, in october 2013 Rhianna fans were quoted by mail online to find Rhiannas new music video 'vile and obscene', showing that even fans disagree with her content and believe it should be toned down.

Fans of these artists are against censorship believe that censorship doesn't allow artists to show off their true personality and let the audience truly build a relationship with them, they believe that a few lyrics won't affect people and change their behaviour and beliefs completely, it is the parents jobs to protect their children, not Ofcom, MTV, and radio staions, the parents should be watching their kids and not letting them get out of hand, people will already know to expect content like this from Rhianna due to her being such as big artist, therefore if they don't want to be offended, don't watch her music videos, she has 81 million likes on facebook and 47 million followers on twitter, therefore it is extremely unlikely for people to not know about her content. Censorship also stops her from getting across her true message, which can prevent really important messages getting across to her fans about serious issues in the real world that could affect them everyday and could be the difference between a better life for them, the censorship makes the music confusing and ruins it for the fans.

AKA radio disagree with censorship, they believe it stops the artists on their station from showcasing themselves and their talent, this restricts the artist from getting bigger and publicising themselves, censorship prevents them from getting across their true message and expressing themselves as artists, there are much worse things going on in the world to focus on such as war, poverty, cancer, homelessness, etc, yet people are worried about a swearword in a song when children overhear people swearing all the time and will pick it up eventually, the censorship of songs prevents the artist from getting across their true point of the song and why they made it and what they are trying to tell the public/their fans, censorship mixes it and and makes it confusing for fans, artists tell their life experiences as well in songs, if there is censorship then the story will not be accurate and will not be as representative of the artist and his background.

BBC radio agree with censorship, most lyrics are too strong nowadays and our viewers would be offended by the material in these songs, therefore we prevent any offensive lyrics from being played through our radio so that our viewers remain happy and listen to our station, one of our presenters, nick grimshaw petitioned to get the song S&M banned on radio, and was successful, showing the dedication and belief of our staff that censorship is important and needs to be ever present in music, we, as a successful and respected radio station believe that every station has the right to play and ban whatever songs they want to as a station, and shouldn't be pressured by artists to promote songs they feel are unsuitable for their audience

MTV believe there needs to be censorship, although explicit language/content is allowed past the 'watershed' hour of nine o clock we try to protect young, impressionable children from material that could affect them and only show this type of music past nine when young children will be in bed, we are not completely against censorship, as stated before, in 1996 MTV protested in the fight music censorship campaign, which shows we only believe in the regulation of it and not complete banning of it, surveys suggest most teens spend two hours a day listening to music on headphones, making it increasingly difficult for parents to watch what their kids are listening to, said Dr Rosaria Gonzalez, a pediatrician and lead author of the position paper, reports have also found that children who listen to explicit and violent music become more aggressive, anti social and promiscuous, MTV constantly receive criticism from parent run organisations based on censorship and feel that if we want to progress as a channel and company, we need to listen to complaints and act on them, artists on MTV are successful artists and role models to young children, we feel that the fans will imitate the artists action which could cause a change in behaviour that could get them into serious trouble, artists such as Madonna and Lady Gaga create a censored and uncensored version of their songs, allowing channels like us to play their songs as soon as possible and help publicise them, whilst they help us and save us the trouble of censoring their music, so therefore it is a win win on all sides

Capital xtra believe in the freedom of speech for artists , they should be able to say what they want and can create a censored version themselves to allow younger fans to watch their videos, we have also used the 'watershed' tactic and allow artists to play uncensored songs past nine o cock, although artists are sometimes annoyed by this it prevents fans of our show being offended and is overall the right decision, we censor music by blanking it (silence over the word), blinking it (bleep over the word), replacing the word with another or back masking, playing the word in reverse, this allows the song to be played but changes them slightly to prevent offence, our audience are mostly elder teenagers/young adults so they can handle explicit language if they listen past nine o clock.

Censorship is key in music and will need to carry on throughout, although a lot of people including artists themselves, fans and record labels disagree with it due to restricting the artists success it is needed to stop the artists from manipulating peoples behavior through their songs and possibly causing a negative effect on a large sector of society. I believe music needs to be censored to protect young children, which are in most cases extremely impressionable from copying bad role models and using language that could get them into serious trouble without them realising what they are really saying, also if the take drugs, like artists or gamble they will become addicted and seriously ruin their life's in the long run, which could, and currently is being prevented through censorship. I would like to follow censorship rules as it allows for more of a story to be shown in a non offensive way, most explicit songs do not have a narrative and are based on a majority of swearing throughout the song