Because my topic of choice for my final paper is on censorship of student newspapers, I thought it would be interesting to see what different types of censorship existed in real-world media in general. When researching this topic, I came across this blog which listed some of the different instances as to why censorship would be used in the first place.
The first type of censorship mentioned was one that protected someone’s privacy. This means either changing the name of someone mentioned in an article, to eliminating their name altogether. It’s considered one of the least controversial forms of censorship, as it is used simply to protect the person of discussion from enduring future harm or humiliation.
Another instance where censorship would be applicable is to avoid showing graphic images and details. This can cause controversy because downplaying the severity of a situation in order to make it less graphic or vivid can change certain aspects of a story. For instance, take a violent crime committed. By describing the crime as less severe than it really was, this in itself can do injustice to the victim while cutting the criminal some slack.
Hiding political bias is another reason why the media, newspapers especially, may use censorship. It is not uncommon for these platforms to come under fire by the public from accusations that they are attempting to promote a particular outlook. This point was particularly interesting to me as I thought about the current presidential campaign, and how media has played a huge role in favoring certain candidates. I personally never would have voted for Donald Trump in the first place, but after viewing countless of media platforms that have either criticized him or made fun of him, I can feel my opinion towards him growing significantly more disapproving. This is simply because of all the negative exposure I have read about him either online or in the news.
As this article has shown, censorship in general is an extremely controversial topic as there is a fine line between protecting audiences from harmful content vs. altering the truth and skewing perceptions. Thus it is important to think about not just what you are reading, but what has also not even been written.
Works Cited:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/20150216_int.jpg
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