Moral Authoritarianism and the Media
Moral Authoritarianism and the Media
Without a doubt, one of the greatest inventions of all time is, television. Television enabled us to witness countless historical events, such as presidential inaugurations, man's first steps on the moon, President, John F. Kennedy's death, and more recently, the tragic events of September 11th 2001. Although the benefits of television are immeasurable, many people believe that American society, especially children, have been adversely affected by it. As the popularity of cable television continues to grow, controversy and concern continue to develop surrounding its implementation and worth.
In February 1996, President Clinton agreed to put forth provisions within the Telecommunications Act of 1996, in order to help regulate TV viewing. This act made numerous changes to laws governing the telecommunications industry. The provision relevant to this analysis is one that requires television manufacturers to include circuitry that would allow parents to screen out programming they did not wish their children to view, such as programs featuring violence. In 1968, Action for Children's Television (ACT) was established in order to convince the Federal Communications Commission to limit violence and force the networks to show more educational programs for children. Despite the fervent efforts of ACT, Congress and the FCC did nothing to promote children's television. However, twenty-two years after the creation of ACT, Congress passed the Children's Television Act of 1990, which directed the FCC, in reviewing TV broadcast license renewals, to "consider the extent to which the licensee has served the educational and informational needs of children." Congress also prohibited indecent broadcasts outside of "safe harbor" hours (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.), the hours when it is least likely that unsupervised children will be in the audience. The passing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 encourages the broadcast and cable industry to "establish voluntary rules for rating programming that contains sexual, violent or other indecent material about which parents should be informed before it is displayed to children," and to voluntarily broadcast signals containing these ratings. Congress now requires television manufacturers to install "V-chips" into new sets.
The Supreme Court's decision to enforce these "V-chips" is based on the notion that labels enhance free speech interests, whereas the suppression of labels injures free speech interests. The court noted that "this kind of disclosure serves rather than dissolves the first amendment," therefore a mandatory V-chip labeling requirement...