Regulation of the media secctor.

Regulatory and professional bodies:

British Video Association - A home video entertainment that was established in 1980.

Film Distributors Association, - The film distributors association decide where you can explore the essential life of a film after the film production has finished.

Video Standards Council (VSC) - The VSC was set up to develop and oversea a code of practice (written rule)that was designed to promote high standards within the video industry.

Trading Standards institute - They have an important role in engaging with and making representations to government institutes.

Press Complaints Commission (PCC), this is a volountary regulatory body for british printed newspapers and magazines, that consist of representives from the major publishers.

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), The independant regulator of advertising across all media, including marketting on websites. They work to ensure that ads are legal, decent, honest and truthful they do this by applying the advertising codes.

The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) - It shapes the industry, connects through leaders and provides competitive advantage to their members, this helps them to build a rusted and secure mobile content and commerce future.

The Independent Games Developers Association (IGDA), - The national trade association repressenting the buisness and commercial interests of video and computer game developers in the Uk and Europe.

British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) - A UK charity that hosts annual award shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and other forms of animation, gives the chance for people to be awarded for their hard work.

Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA)  - Now known as the radio company, the trade body for Uk commercial radio, represents commercial radio to the government, the radio authority, copyright societies and other organisations concerned with radio.

The International Visual Communication Association (IVCA) - A non profit academic association  founded in 1950, whose members are interested in the study, teaching and application of all aspects of human communication.

Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) - The main international standards organisation for the world wide web.

British Web Design and Marketing Association - It is a not for profit organisation and is designed purley to encourage and promote industry standards within the web design sector.

British Interactive Multimedia Association (BIMA) - an industry body representing the digital industry in the United Kingdom, it was formed in 1985.

Regulatory issues:

ownership - A state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property, which may be an object, land/real estate or intellectual property.

monoply: where one company tries to own everything and have control over everything, in my opinion this is not a good thing for one company to own everything as they are then only telling people what they believe and as they wont hear any different they wil believe what one company tells them and i dont believe that is fair, there for i don't think that one company should be able to own everything because then people will have to believe what they say even though it may not be the truth, but they will have no other choice but to believe what they say is true as they wont be hearing any different.                                                                                                                                                                
consumer choice - gives the buyers the chance to choose their personal preference for consumption goods as people shouldnt be expected to pay for things that they dont want, so the government have to give people the choice and have a wide variety of choice.


freedom of information - refers to the protection of the right to freedom of expression with regards to the information technology and the internet, people have the right to know things, to know whats happening.


censorship - making sure nothing inapropriate is shown, therefor it should all be censored making sure that nothing that could be considered harmful to people or the government are shown, however in my opinion i believer that now censorship is taken too seriously as almost everything is censored which puts limitations on things which stops people being able to veiw certain things, which i do not find fair as other people are able to see certain things that others arent and i believe if one person can see it then everyone else should also be able to.


taste and decency - Only certain things should be said/shown publicly through the media in order to keep taste and decency in the media. An example of reaching the taste and decency laws is when Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross publicly slated a girl on the radio, they did this by ringing up this girls grandfather and giving him their opinion of her, whilst on air. As bad things were said on the voicemail, Russell and Jonathon was accused of breaching laws however i do not think they were entirley in the wrong as everyone has the freedom of speech so i think they was right to talk about their opinion on somebody, however i dont beleive they should have rang her grandfather, however if they wanted to discuss it publicly then they should be allowed, in my opinion.

Media Representation

This is how certain people and stereotypes such as homosexuals, people of different race, etc are represented in the media industry in television programmes, film and the radio. This is because if a certain stereotype is represented in a negative way then everyone that watches that programme will then think negatively of that specific stereotype. Representation in particular programmes are chosen by the director or writer so are there for their own opinions and not necessarily what people are actually like.

An example where a certain representation is shown negatively is in Hollyoaks when a gay man named Brendon beats up men that he likes and is also shown as a bad person as he has killed people, however in the same programme there is another gay person who is shown more positively, so this shows that not all gay people are like that, they are all different.  A representation is a generalisation of a group or place etc and are used in the media as a short cut to communication which means that the audience will understand certain things without having to directly be told.

OFCOM

Ofcom – 

Basically the police for the broadcasting and telecommunications industry, their job is to make sure that broadcasting productions such as films, tv programmes and radio stations are doing what they should be and not doing anything wrong, so they have to protect consumers from material that could be considered harmful or offensive to them in any way. Some of the main areas that ofcom covers are licensing, codes and policies, complaints and competitions.

BBFC

BBFC -

British Board of film classification, it was originally the British board of film censors, it is a non- governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and it’s responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom. It has a requirement to classify videos, DVD’s and sometimes video games all under the Video Recordings Act.

The video recordings act requires that video, music and documentarys, non fiction, video games, etc under the act had to be classifies, this makes it illegal to supply any recording that had not been certified. This can restrict release to any age of 18 or under, or to only licensed sex-shops. The government currently designate the BBFC as the authority for certifying video releases, this is because the law requires the certificate to be shown on the packaging or media labels of the video recording, one of the rules is that only UK releases can be legally sold or hired in the UK.

News International Phone Hacking Scandal

This scandal breaches the human rights act, invades privacy, breaking privacy laws in which people should have the right to be left alone and have things to themselves.

This mainly involved the News of the World, but also involved other British tabloid newspapers published by News international which is a subsidiary of News Corporation. Employees of the newspaper was accused of being involved in phone hacking, police bribery and using improper stories influence in the pursuit of publishing stories.

Phone hacking investigations started in 2005 and went on till 2007, it was agreed that the papers phone hacking activities were limited to celebrities, politicians and members of the British Royal Family. However in July 2011 it was revealed that phones of a murdered schoolgirl named Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers and victims of London Bombings were also accessed, this resulted to a public outcry against news Corporation and the owner Rupert Murdoch.

On the 6^th of July British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that a public enquiry would take place to look into it all after police investigations had finished.  On 13^th July David Cameron named Lord Justice Leveson as chairman of the inquiry, with a remit to look into phone hacking and police bribery by the News of the World while a second inquiry would look at the culture and ethics of the wider British Media.  

All the negative attention caused by this scandal eventually reached the United States which is where News Corporation is headquartered and also operates multiple media outlets. On July the 14^th The Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a probe to find out whether News corporation accessed voicemails of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and on July 15^th the US Attorney General announced an additional investigation will take place by the Department of Justice, these were to find out if the company had violated the foreign corrupt practices act.

Ethical and legal constraints within the Media Sector

Ethical:

social issues and sensitivities, eg representation of gender, representation of religious beliefs, linguistic usages, accessibility; professional body codes of practice, eg BBC producers’ guidelines, Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility standards

Legal:


people who work in the creative media induestries have certain rules and regulations that they must abide by.

Broadcasting Act 1990 (and later amendments),
A series of laws that relate to what is legal and illegal to broadcast on television and radio.


Official Secrets Act 1989,
Obscene Publications Act 1959 (and later amendments)
Art of parliment of the UK's parliment. This created offences of the disclosure of information and breach of offficial trust..




Films Act 1985
laws that concern film finance and defining british films.


Video Recordings Act 1984
laws stating that all rules that are sold or available for rental must be classified by the BBC.


 Race Relations Act 1976
Established by the parliment of parliment on the UK to prevent any discrimination.


Human Rights Act 1998,
rights that belong justifiably to every person.


Licensing Act
The Licensing Act 2003 became law on 24 November 2005.
Licensing objectives
Licensing authorities operate according to four licensing objectives, to make sure that licensable activities are carried out in public interest.
- the preventation of crime and disorder
- public safety
- the preventation of public nuisance
- the protection of children from harm






Privacy Laws
the right to be left alone. Privacy laws are considered in the context of an individuals rights or expectations of privacy. This is to ensure that producers can avoid infringement of privacy in programmes and in connection with obtaining material included in programmes, any infringment of privacy must be warranted.
An example of breaching someones privacy is like the phone hacking scandal.
Copyright
copyright protects written theatrical, musical and artistic works as well as film, book layouts, sound recordings and broadcasts. This is an automationc right, so you dont have to apply for it.
An example of breaching copyright rules is if sombody wrote a song for their favourite band or artist and they decided to bring out that song and didnt say that they wrote it then they would be breaking copright rules, for not includig them.


Libel Laws
Laws stating that no slander or discrimination will be aimed at one particular individual or group.


intellectual property
This refers to creations of the mind, litterally and artistic works, symbols, names, images, and designs. IP results from the expansion of an idea So IP might be a band, invention, song or another intellectual creation.

This was an act of the parliament of the UK. This created offences of disclosure of information and breach of official trust. This is illegal to disclose information regarding national security.


Codes of practice
a code of practice is a set of written rules which explains how people that work in particular proffesions should behave within that proffession., these rules are written by a proffesssional or official body to help them follow legal and ethical standards.


Editors code of practice
Newspaper and magazines industrys code of practice, all members of the press have a duty to maintain the highest proffessional standards, making sure that the industry follow those ethical standards, in order to protect both the rights of an individual and also also the publics right to know things. It is essential that an agreed code of practice is set and dhould be honored by all editors, its the responsibillity of editors and publishers to apply the code.