Censorship

Do you think music videos should be censored?

Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient. It can be done by governments, private organisations or by individuals who engage in self-censorship. It occurs in a variety of different contexts including speech, books, music, films, the press, radio, television and the Internet for a variety of reasons including national security, to control obscenity, to protect children, to promote or restrict political or religious views and to protect intellectual property. Many countries provide strong protections against censorship by law, but none of these protections are absolute.

Ofcom is the official office of communications who are based in the UK. They deal with broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries. Ofcom have the authority to censor music videos, which I will be looking at.

Rihanna's song 'S&M', released in 2011 is a prime example of whether or not music videos should be censored. The title of the song, 'S&M' stands for 'sadomasochism' which is a form of role-playing. Throughout the video there is a continuous sexual reference and the audience can see this from the lyrics in the song and the actions by Rihanna and the other people during the video. The use of iconography is apparrent using light leather clothes, whips and a banana which suggest a sexual nature. This is all seen to be innaproprate and therefore likely to be censored. The song that is played on the radio also has to be censored, the difference is that only certain words have to be censored which is often a lot less than censoring the video footage. This is because it is generally only connotations of explicit content and not a direct reference.

MTV has actually banned this video from being broadcasted on the channel, this channel is one that dominants the music video industry and the behaviour in this video would give them a bed reputation and result in complaints. OFCOM would therefore have to censor or ban the video and it could be deemed innapropriate.