Ethical and legal Constraints in television

Video recording act

Video recorders in 1978 were first introduced in the UK. At that current time
there was no legalisation to control what you could/couldnt do. However the VRA
(video recording act) of 1984 changed everything. This is because they gave age
ratings to any piece of media, to decide what was appropriate for who. They
would look out if the piece id media contained any images of human sexual
activity, urinary or excretory functions, extreme violence and torture, or even
depiction of techniques likely to be useful in committing crimes.
Copy right law
The copy right law is important to the people who are the creators of a piece of
work. For example publishers and artists who have their own work they can copy
right it. This provides them with a legal right of ownership of the work. This is
only fair to them due to the fact they need to make a living from their talent and
the time they have put into the work. When the work is copy righted this means
no one is allowed to use their work without their permission to do so. On
television you need to be careful with the logos you are showing in the
background, even if they are shown by accident and the logo featured is
copyrighted then you have to get permission from the company for you work to
be technically legal to produce. If they dont allow you to use there logo (work)
then your piece of media has to be changed or taken down. The legal penalties
charged vary in depending on the circumstance. They penalty could be where
the offender pays the actual amount of damages and profits. Under supplying
video recording of unclassified work on the www.gov.uk website it says that a
sentence could be 6 months or a 20,000 fine and the indictment could be a 2
years sentence (serious case). An example of the copy right law being broken
was back in January in 2014 where a landlord used a foreign satellite card .The
card was authorised for private use only and he used it for streaming premier
league games inside the pub. Breaching the Premier Leagues copyright meant
he faced a 65,000 in legal costs.
Television Act
The very first broadcasting channel was the BBC (British Broadcasting
Corporation) in 1937. At first it was only really shown the south east and London
and very few people could afford TV sets to watch the channel, however it got
suspended during the Second World War but immersed back in the late 1940s
during the debate for future broadcasting. Years later the television act was first
introduced in 1954 by the ITA independent television authority. It was a law in
the UK which permitted commercial channels to broadcast what they want as
they arent influenced by the government or cooperate interests. ITV otherwise
known as Independent television has been the most popular commercial channel
through the most of its existence due to the fact of its relaxation of regulation. As
the BBC and ITV progressed throughout the years, they were attracting a larger
audience and more of the UK citizens where depending on those three channels.
Therefore in the 1980s a 4th channel was introduced, called Channel 4. Since
then a large diverse outburst of channels have started to broadcast using the
increasing availability of satellite, cable and internet technology.

Therefore because of the Television act it has allowed a large range of television
channels to be broadcasted. This helps the industry as more money is bought
into the economy and it introduces more jobs for the public. However the
television act included a proviso which was that the material the channel would
have to produce, had to be High quality. This furthermore helped the industry
because it meant that the editorial values had to be at great quality. So anything
not professionally broadcasted is not permitted.
Importance of ethical issues
In modern day television, the industry try to keep everything shown on television
to be as fair and true as possible. For example the programme EastEnders
doesnt just have all white Caucasians featured, because it wouldnt be true to
the ethnicity of London. Thats why in EastEnders you see diverse ethnic groups,
people from different backgrounds; British, Nigerians and Asians.
Channel 4 took the risky decision to take on board a documentary called benefits
street. As soon as the programme was a football star from said on twitter the
stars of Channel 4s Benefits Street should be banned from having children.
Followed by various other criticising tweets. This caused a large outburst if
further mocking of the people in benefits street, people were even aiming death
threats at them.
Furthermore the use of language presented from a source of media shouldnt
discriminate anyone in terms of race, sex and religion or the way anyone lives
their life. Offensive language on shows shouldnt be shown until after 9pm this is
because younger audiences dont watch the television at that time and more of
an adult audience watch the television then.
Representation of gender
The representation of females in the television industry varies in certain parts.
Back thirty years ago it was very different. In some cases female characters are
fewer in number and less of them are central to the plot. Also females illustrated
to the audience the traditional division of labour in marriage, females characters
were less passive than male characters. For example in a drama, if a female had
a job, it would be stereotypically a low paid occupation.
In present day has anything changed? According to Lauzen, female-starred
programs are more likely to be scheduled in lousy time slots, which indicates
that these shows will get lower ratings or shares among the viewers (2008) in
this circumstance the representation of gender hasnt changed at all.
Men tend to be represented as stronger characters for example GI Joe to Rambo,
the masculinity is shown through the strong or aggressive attitude of the
character. Even though men have considerably more economic power than
women in society, this development over time can be damaging to the boys
perspective of life.
Representation of religious beliefs
The media shown on television like the news attracts audiences by showing
conflict. Most of the conflict has different religions involved. Headline storys
reveal such tragic terrorist attacks and state that they are cause by religious
conflict. However the media shown only focuses on the bad and not the good.
When would you ever see a religion be linked with something good being put on

British television. Although the pope is catholic (Englands native religion). He

still get controversy like from small groups of conservatives and the fact there is
conflict involving the pope it captures the eye of the news and feeds the
audience with negativity that is linked with Christianity .
Out of the top 5 religion stories in 2010, 4 of them were related to controversies
about Islam. In fact the top story that was view by the large audience of America
showed how there were plans to build an Islamic mosque only a couple of blocks
away from the World Trade Centre Attack. This caused the media to explode and
many people disagreed with the idea and immediately started to judge Islam by
linking them with terrorism.
The media really manipulate people into thinking that some religions encourage
violence, like the Muslims in Isis. When really the Muslims involved in Isis is just a
small fraction in comparison to the whole religion. People in Britain are protected
from discrimination by association by law. However they still show conflict cause
by religions anyway as they are allowed to as its informing the audience. When
really it can be harmful as it is easy to manipulate the audience to thing that
Muslims for example are bad people.

ASA
The ASA regulates the all of the media produced in the UK. They have
advertisement codes for the media to be regulated by. The company also deal
with the complaints from the public and they check the advert their complaining
about. The company is allowed to ban the advert from televising any further if
the media content is misleading, harmful or offensive. By doing this it helps keep
the media clean from unacceptable content being shown on television and other
media platforms that the public are entitled to. One of the most complained
adverts that the ASA have dealt with is the Paddy Power advertisement. The
advert received 5,525 complaints in total and most were about how the advert
caused serious offence by trivialising the issues based around the Oscar Pistorius
murder trial. They upheld the complaints and the outcome of the situation was
that they banned the advert from been televised. The written statement on the
ASA website states We []considered the ad went further than simply being in
poor taste and that it was likely to cause serious or widespread offence by
trivialising the sensitive issues surrounding the murder trial.
Ofcom
Ofcom is based in the UK and they are a communications regulator. Not only do
they regulate television, they also regulate radio sectors, fixed line telecoms,
postal services, mobiles and also the airwaves that wireless devices use. Some of
the things they regulate include making sure the television content produced is

diverse coving all tastes and interests. By doing this it means that the television
industry can be more settled. A case they dealt with was On 10th July 2008
Ofcom published its decision to impose a statutory sanction on Square 1
Management Limited (Square 1) in respect of its service Smile TV (now known
as Blue Kiss TV) for a serious breach of the Broadcasting Code they charged the
customers with premium rate services. The service breached the following code
rules. 1.24 (adult-sex material),2.1 (generally accepted standards) and 2.3
(material that may cause offence must be justified by context). The penalty
Ofcom imposed was 17,500 to the owner of the company due what they did.
BAFTA
The British Academy of film and television is self supported charity helps
promote and develop the art of film and television production. They do this by
having an awards ceremony celebrating the outstanding work of individuals. By
doing so it inspires the younger generations to aim for ambitious goals like what
other idols have achieved therefore it benefiting the public. On their website they
have more information about the charity and what their aims are.
http://www.bafta.org/

Issues for the regulatory bodies

Issues regulatory bodies may face in television industry can be by the consumer
choice, Freedom of information, the Censorship and the taste and decency.
The ASA is driven partly by the consumer choice. For example if the media
shown on the television doesnt appeal to them of offends them in anyway the
ASA have the pressure to deal with the complaint by contacting the provider of
the source of media being broadcasted. If they dont deal with any issue properly
then the provider of the source of media may receive many complaints
decreasing reputation and they could get less viewings meaning less money
overall.
Due to the fact that Ofcom is responsible for the diversity of the media
broadcasted they have to make sure that the media they regulate is attracting a
broad range of audiences of all age groups. If not the media presented to the
nation will lack flexibility to entertain all audiences therefore decreasing some of
the providers profits .For example they make sure that there are broad amounts
of news stations to cover different voices and opinions, otherwise the media
would be right winged and have only one side of the story, manipulating the
audience easier. FOX news was very right winged during the time of Barack
Obama being elected president by calling him by his full name Barack Hussain
Obama. They did this to manipulate their audience to think Obama was a bad
person to elect so they said his full name to try link him with the Iraq former
president Saddam Hussein.
Bafta effects consumer choice as they influence the younger audience to get
involved in the television industry they do this through their annular Bafta
awards funded by the public. In fact they have a scheme on their website to
inspire people to become writers for the TV community. This helps get more
diverse opinions in the industry by them writing and producing the media for the

nation to see. At the moment there are very few black writers and female
righters therefore inspiring that audience will give the opinions coming from
different ethnic groups and women attract a larger audience in the UK.

Freedom for information (act)

The freedom of information act makes it clear that it is a right to be able to
obtain any recorded information held by public authorities. It also requires public
authorities to publish particular information by a publication scheme, this means
that it is easy to obtain the information after as there is no need for any requests
for the information Ofcom is a public authority and they go by this act and they
have applied the principles of the publication scheme to their website.
The ASA does not follow the freedom of information act although it is shown on
their website due to the fact it carries out necessary public functions that include
the regulation of television and newspaper advertising. This is helpful for the
public as the information on there is links into what their regulatory site is all
about.
The freedom of information act doesnt apply to Bafta at all. However the BBC
receive many requests for information under the freedom of information act
about the television act .However some requests they are not permitted to reveal
certain statistics but they are still as open as possible about the questions they
receive.
Censorship
Ofcom broadcasting codes includes a section on the rules dedicated to protect
the younger children audience. For example Ofcom inflict a watershed on
television which avoids any unsuitable material like violence, sexual material and
offensive language to be shown before 9pm. To ensure that the their rules stay
up to date constantly they carry out regular research with parents and other
people who watch television to find out what is appropriate or not. The people
are also asked if the watershed time of 9pm is a suitable time.
The ASA Deal with censorship by dealing with the complaints against
unacceptable media. However they sometimes they dont actually take down the
advert. They take one board the complaints however they check the codes and
laws to see if the advert can be shown. some adverts dodge advertising codes
but they can legally be still distasteful. For example the sainsburys war advert
showed a story based on 1914 Christmas and it was the 4 th most complained

about advert on the ASA advert with 823 complaints. People objected the fact
that they used the first World War for an advert. However the ASA didnt judge
the ad to be offensive from the breach code therefore it wasnt upheld.
BAFTA are strongly against the use of offensive language at the awards therefore
its not allowed at all. This is because they dont want to offend any of the
viewers and it also makes it clean for younger viewers to watch. However they
sometimes promote some films that arent censored to the standards that people
would like them to be but when they are shown they are after the watershed at
nine in the evening.
Taste and Decency
The majority of complaints the ASA deal with is the advertisements that are
misleading how ever there is still a proportion of the complaints about offensive
advertisements. The ASA has to adjust to the audiences tastes constantly. This is
because the morals of the output of media are changing constantly along with
this the advertising codes. For example in the 1950s advertisements could come
across sexist because of the way they portrayed women. However in this current
era advertising codes make it so sexism isnt show at all in advertising. This
shows how the tastes and decency levels were in the 1950s and how it was
acceptable back then. Along with sexism the advertisement codes are now more
strict on the way race or religion is presented.
On the Ofcom website they make it clear that any content should not include
anything which would offend against good taste or decency. Furthermore
anything that could to influence crime or lead to disorder or to be offensive to
public feeling. They also say that the licences should take note of the guidance
contained in section 1 of the ICT Programme Code, specially anything relating to
the use of inappropriate language or bad taste of humour. On the BBC website
they say they are very careful with what is acceptable to be shown on television.
This is why the show top gear got put off air in 2015 when they were in the
middle of their new series. Jeremy Clarkson had previously been warned about
his behaviour on the show however because of his actions the show got banned.
BAFTAs ethos is about small independent production companies to come into
the film industry with their low budget films. However they received complaints
towards the big budget American films that have won BAFTA awards. Also on live
showings BBC have received complaints due to the foul language used on the
ceremony. Stephen Fly swore many times during the ceremony when he
presented Tom Cruise he said Tom f**king Cruise. The BBCs response was that
they were very sorry for the language used and they took on board carefully the
comments made.

Sources
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/intellectual-propertyoffences/intellectual-property-offences
http://schools.cla.co.uk/how-copyright-affects-schools/why-copyright-isimportant/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-25968200
https://mediarepresentation.wordpress.com/women-in-tv-dramas/
http://www.asa.org.co.uk
http://www.bafta.org/initiatives/supporting-talent/rocliffe
https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2015/2014-mostcomplained-about-ads.aspx#.Vr24AiAS-Uk
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/broadcast-bulletins/