Censorship

Censorship is all about suppressing or objecting to speech or other communication with the audience which may be considered, harmful, sensitive, or even taboo, this is determined by the government, media outlets, or any other possible corporation with the necessary power to do so. In this case it is the company Office Of Communications (Ofcom) is the corporation with the power that spreads over a wide range of media such as television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. It is Ofcom's job to protect the audience from potential harmful acts or communications through the media.This could be references to drug abuse, violence, sexual encounters, advertisement of illegal goods and any material that could be seen as influencing its audience in a negative way.

Many artists have been targeted by Ofcom since they started up in 2002 but it wasn't until 2003 a year later that Ofcom received its full authority from the Communications Act. One of its most recent artists targeted is Rihanna for her official music video for the song S&M, which Ofcom said had " significant sexual fetish, bondage and sadomasochistic nature''. For example there is a scene containing various shots of the artist walking a man on a leash and whipping him, this is showing explicit behavior and could also be considered dangerous which is one reason why this video was initially banned and then allowed only after the watershed as young children could be exposed to the malicious nature of the video. Also there is a scene in which the artist adopts sexualised positions with blow up dolls and in many scenes Rihanna is wearing rubber and latex fetish outfits as her costume.

Another iconic artist that has had constant collisions with Ofcom is the rap artist Marshall Bruce Mathers III who goes by the stage name of Eminem whose controversial songs and music videos have been frowned upon by the Office of Communications for almost the entirety of his career. The question is whether or not his songs and more importantly his music videos should be censored. There are reasons why people such as parents or MTV would want his music banned or censored as it contains some very disturbing material for example in the video for his song Space Bound there is a shot of the the artist shooting himself in the head which contains some extremely graphic and realistic footage. MTV would not want this shown on their channel as there target audience are young adults and teenagers who may be easily influenced by the footage or may not be able to handle footage of this suicidal nature at a younger age as they do not have as much life experience as some of their older audience and if they are ever faced with a problem they may look to their role model (Eminem) for guidance. Also parents will not want there children seeing this scene as it could firstly upset the child but may also change there view on death and violence like this in a negative way. Another reason why this artists music could be banned by certain radio stations is that in some songs the artist uses lyrics that promotes the act of sexually abusing women and treating them in a negative way, for example in Eminem's song Superman some of the lyrics used contain things such as "Don't put out? I'll put you out" and "bitches they come, they go" these lyrics are talking about mistreating women and taking advantage of them. As this music is played on the radio they is no way of stopping audiences of any age listening to it unless it is censored or not played at all. As well as a young audience being in danger of exposure to this music they are also unfortunately a small minority of people who have varied mental illnesses. These are the most important people when it comes to protecting certain audience from lyrics such as these as they may be a lot easier influenced to behave according to there favorite artists.

There is an argument against censoring as a lot of the audience and most of the artists feel that they are not being allowed to fully express themselves through their music as it is being tampered with by companies such as Ofcom. Eminem is one of the biggest artists when it comes to expressing feelings and emotions through music, most of his fans say that his use of lyrics and visuals in his videos and songs may be rude and sometimes inappropriate but if they where not  it would not be conveying his true feelings or telling the same stories. This is saying that if he was not allowed to fully express himself the way he wanted to the music might not be as popular as it is now or might not connect with the audience as well. People such as the fans of the artist can be inspired by certain scenes from their music videos or lyrics in their songs, for example Eminem bases a lot of his lyrics on his own life and in his song Marshall Mathers his says "last year I was nobody , this year I'm selling records" this is showing how he became famous. This song also contains many sexual references and crude language so if it was censored for being to explicit for some viewers other viewers may not get a chance to listen to the song and be inspired  by it as it is focused around the life of Marshall Mathers and how through everything he managed to become a successful and famous artist.

In my opinion like a lot of people I would like to see and hear all artists work through different ranges off media but unfortunately there is also a large audience who are either mentally ill, too young or easily influenced to be so easily and frequently exposed to constant referencing to sex, drugs, gambling, violence and crime which are all considered too be unsuitable to some viewers.