Federal Communications Commission/V-Chip and Parental Rating System - Essay Example

Federal Communications Commission/V-Chip and Parental Ratings System Introduction Rating and labeling systems originated in the world of film and have several purposes. Rating and labeling function, inter alia, to determine whether a film can be released at all and to inform parents and others for which groups a film was suitable. In some cases, film theatres are required to refuse admittance to a person because of the unsuitability of a film to that person's age. The history of film ratings offers a guide to the issues that will be raised by implementing rating and labeling systems in the television sphere. Clearly, the primary purpose of television ratings is to provide information for potential viewers, but the other objectives of cinema ratings apply also to the debate over television ratings. For example, establishing a rating to determine whether a film should be released at all (or be played in theatres generally open to the public) has its correlative in the question of continued broadcaster responsibility: whether a given rating determines that a program cannot be shown; can only be shown after the appropriate watershed; or can only be shown on earmarked, encrypted, or subscriber channels. The study will return to this question when examining the relationship between rating and labeling systems and continued areas of broadcaster responsibility (Roth, 1996). For television, a technical device may prove to be the desirable equivalent of the box office manager refusing admittance to minors. Theoretically (and it was subject to some manipulation), a rating or label was an instruction to the ticket seller to refuse entrance to persons for whom the film had been classified as inappropriate. Like the ticket seller, technical devices for parental choice act as a gatekeeper, with the capacity to determine, even if approximately, whether someone who wishes to gain access is qualified to do so. The Search for a Technical Device The divined Golden Fleece of empowerment is a technical device that will allow a parent or guardian to control the television receiver so that programs deemed undesirable will not be accessible to a minor under their care. Obviously, a rating or labeling system alone, while beneficial, does not sufficiently empower modem parents who, for a variety of reasons, may not be in custody of the receiver at the time that a program decision is being made. The V-chip, invented by a young Canadian engineer, Tim Collings, appeared to be the magic instrument for such parental empowerment. Originally, the V stood for viewer, as in viewer choice; later, it metamorphosed into V for violence, to mark the particular kind of undesirability that was the motivating reason for adoption and promotion of the technology. As the debate in Canada and the United States matured, the meaning of the V-chip was broadened to include its use in rating explicit sexual content as well as violent content (Paraschos & Paraschos 1997). At any rate, the V-chip provided the internal mechanism that would allow a parent to act, in advance, on information that was embedded in the program. The technology promised to allow the parent to be an effective gatekeeper. The parent, using an instrument like a remote control, could direct the television receiver to block out programs that had particular triggering signals. In 1997, in Canada, after a period of study and research in which the broadcast industry, other groups, and the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission worked closely together, the V-chip and an accompanying labeling system was finally adopted (Action Group on Violence on Television 1997). In the United States, with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Public Law 104-104, the Congress ordered that the V-chip or similar technology be installed in all receivers of a minimum screen size and urged the broadcasting industry to develop an accompanying rating system on pain of further federal intervention. In 1998, a self-regulatory system for labeling was found by the Federal Communications Commission to be such an acceptable accompaniment. Rating Systems At the core of every parental control mechanism lies its rating or labeling system. That system both identify the appropriateness of media content for children and determines the means by which children's access to that content may be controlled. Rating systems define whether a program can be shown within the watershed, how it should be encoded for a specific technical device, and what type of visual warning system should be used. They should give sufficient information to empower parents to make efficient and deliberative decisions concerning children's access to media content. The challenge of every rating design is thus to develop a system complex enough to give relatively detailed information about a program, but still simple enough for both labelers and parents to use (Federman, 1990). The Rating System Under the voluntary rating system, a submitted film would receive a rating based on a determination of what most American parents would consider appropriate for viewing by children. 7 The factors to be considered included theme, language, nudity and sex, violence, and drugs. Initially, the ratings used were G for all ages; M for parental guidance suggested; R for children under a certain age not admitted without an accompanying parent or adult guardian; and X for no one under seventeen admitted. Ratings are often the product of industry fear of harsher measures, demanded by a public in the wake of a spectacular crisis, for example, but can also be used to empower consumers, giving them a greater ability to choose media content consistent with their personal tastes and values. The current system has modified the earlier symbols. The present rating symbols are the following: G General Audiences -- all ages admitted. Nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children. PG Parental Guidance Suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance." May contain some material parents might not like for their young children. PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Parents are urged to be cautious. Some material may be inappropriate for pre-teenagers. R Restricted. Under 17 require accompanying parent or adult guardian. Contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them. NC-17 No one 17 and under admitted. Patently adult. Children are not admitted. The rating symbols are trademarked. The X designation is not trademarked. Pictures that are labeled X no longer receive that rating from the MPAA. Rather, an X rating is now self-imposed. Generally, X pictures are not submitted for rating (Cowan, 1979). For all submitted films, the ratings appear on all advertising, videocassette packages and the cassettes themselves, and at the theaters. The ratings are generally included in newspaper reviews and listings. When a rating is given, it is accompanied by a short explanation for the rating; the explanation is not generally used in advertising. Nevertheless, the reasons for the ratings are often reported by the media and available to the public from various sources, including theaters, Moviefone, and the Internet. A movie's rating is decided by a rating board located in Los Angeles. The members of the board work for CARA, which is funded by fees charged to the producers/distributors for the rating of their films. The MPAA president, after consultation with NATO and others, designates the chairman of the Rating Board. The board is currently composed of a group of twelve people, each with parenting experience and many of whom serve full-time. For most of the raters, the rating position is not a long-term career or job. Most of them have other careers, and their service is generally for a limited period. The current board includes a cabinetmaker, a homemaker, a teacher, a postal worker, a microbiologist, a hairdresser, a store owner, and a restaurant manager. Some have college degrees and some do not, and they come from various parts of the country. Considering all characteristics, they are a diverse group of people. If dissatisfied with a rating, a producer/distributor may appeal the rating to the Rating Appeals Board, which is composed of fourteen to eighteen members designated by the MPAA, NATO, and the American Film Marketing Association (a group of independent movie producers and distributors). A rating can be changed only by a two-thirds vote of those Appeals Board members present at an appeal. The Appeals Board members vote to change a CARA rating only if they believe that the rating was "clearly erroneous." Reversals are not common. Aside from appealing the rating or editing the motion picture, there are no means to change a rating. There is also a Policy Review Committee, comprised of members of the MPAA and NATO. The Policy Review Committee can revise the basic rules and regulations administered by CARA and promulgate new regulations. Advertisement of films is also part of the film industry's self-regulatory mechanism. Advertising for all media is submitted to the Advertising Administration (not part of CARA, but within the MPAA) for approval with respect to rated motion pictures. For example, when trailers are approved for "all audiences" that means they may be shown with all feature films. Trailers rated for "restricted audiences" can only be shown with films rated R or NC-17 (Price, 1998). Since the introduction of rating systems as a vehicle for addressing concerns about violent and other potentially problematic media content, several systems, such as watershed, acoustic warning, visual icons, or standard categorization, have been designed and implemented. In general, systems: 1. Are administered by state, industry (board or single enterprise), or third party bodies (groups or individuals); 2. Are founded on either a specific methodology or an opaque judgment, and; 3. Provide different sets of information and/or symbolic representations such as age thresholds, acoustic warning, or visual icons. Therefore, if rating systems as such are not so different and numerous, the information they provide, the way this information is processed as well as its design can, and usually does, vary among countries, within countries, within a given medium, and across media. This is especially true in Europe, as will be shown, where no common approach towards rating exists. Moreover, in some Member States, such as Spain, it has not even been possible to establish a common national classification system for TV. In others, such as the United Kingdom, an attempt to develop common principles has been made. All this makes a European-wide classification system seem extremely difficult (Corn-Revere, 1995). Evidently this divergence reflects significant cultural differences between and within countries, which are, nonetheless, subject to common directives regarding transfrontier broadcasting. Furthermore, it reflects the different regulatory approaches taken to, for instance, broadcast media in comparison with cinema and video. This has always been justified on the basic grounds of the scarcity of airwaves, public service, and the pervasiveness of the medium. This final rationale for different approaches to regulation is often cited in discussion of the protection of children or parental control. Media differ in the kinds of blocking, selecting, and organizing filters practically available to them. It is easier to block videocassettes, because cassettes are individual and separate units of consumption. They can be put on high shelves or locked behind counters in shops. It is also easier to control admission to cinemas. Technical Devices and Rating Systems One important aspect of ratings history is that all existing rating systems were developed without the knowledge of the currently available technical devices for delivering them in an efficient and operative way. At the same time, most rating systems developed for television are derived from or related to rating systems established for earlier forms of media, predominantly cinema. During the development of cinema ratings, questions about the nature of ratings developed: should ratings be descriptive or evaluative; should there be specific criteria or should such standards emerge from a history of practice; and can there be consistency and reliability In film, as with its successor media, questions arose as to whether ratings should be determined by official or governmental bodies on the one hand or by self-regulation on the other. And in film, too, questions arose as to whether some films should be forbidden rather than subject to the discretion of parents, and whether watersheds or other mechanisms for filtering and creating dual markets could be established. All these questions, developed in the context of the cinema, are now being applied to the present discussion on ratings. For films, as now for television ratings, the process must be efficient and operative to be useful. By efficient, we mean a rating system must provide a package that allows parents to act within the constraints and demands otherwise placed upon them; by operative, we mean a parental control signaling system that allows the preprogramming, blocking, or filtering of a class of television broadcast through a technical device. In cinema, the action of the box office or turnstile was the operative item. An efficient rating indicated age appropriateness, such as barring those under 14. The equivalent to a technical device is the discretion of the gatekeeper. The pipe or pathway for information is extremely constrained. For a rating system to use these technologies, it needs to be strictly limited to a few criteria with something approximating an off-on choice for the recipient. These techniques are also most efficient where there is a unitary rating scheme, whether it originated with the government of with the industry. On the other hand, if an indirect Electronic Program Guide approach (such as NexTView) is employed, the program-related information provided can be abundant and multi-sourced, even in an analogue environment. Similarly, if broadcasting is of a digital nature, then the possibilities for a rating system can be quite different. With this in mind, we can now examine the existing models for rating systems using the typology developed herein (Federman, 1990). Content Ratings System and the V-chip The ability for parents to block certain programming is part of the new federal telecommunications legislation. Parents believe movie ratings -- although far from perfect -- help them know what their children are watching at the theater. A well-thought-out TV rating system could do the same at home, advocates contend. On Feb. 8, President Bill Clinton signed into the law the largest overhaul of the U.S. communications industry in more than half a century. The law -- which opened the telephone and cable industries to competition -- required every new television to be equipped with a V-chip, a computer device that will block out pre-selected programming on televisions with screens 13 inches and larger. Before the chip can be used, the television industry must devise a ratings system that will rank programs based on their sexual, violent or language content. Parents claim the device eventually will lead to better programming, but the television business had claimed it would lead to bland offerings. As the legislation became law, the networks and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit, claiming the V-chip violates the First Amendment. The legislation gives the television industry one year to come up with its own ratings system or the Federal Communications Commission will do so based on an advisory committee's recommendations. The law does not, however, require broadcasters to implement the ratings. It also gives television makers two years before they have to sell sets with the device that can electronically pick up the ratings. The only area exempt from the ratings, the bill states, is content based on a show's religious or political makeup (Busch, 1996). Operation of CARA CARA board members view a submitted film and fill out preliminary ballots to record their impressions as to what most parents would consider the appropriate rating. After further reflection and discussion, the members complete a more detailed rating form to indicate the basis for their formal votes. The board members also discuss and formulate the reasons for the rating. The rating is communicated to the producer/distributor of the submitted film, and the producer/distributor can accept the rating or edit the film and resubmit it for a new round of viewing and rating. The producer/distributor can continue the editing and submittal process, but release commitments usually deter endless resubmissions. If the producer/distributor is still dissatisfied, it may appeal as described above (Brown, 1986). The Impact of the Ratings System If there were no rating system, there would still be some other mechanism, and that mechanism would likely include censors or censorship boards. The creation of the rating system has fostered creativity in the movie industry, while assuring that parents are receiving information to guide them in supervising what their children see at the theaters or on videos. Public opinion polls demonstrate overwhelming public use and acceptance of the rating system. Many have pointed to the CARA rating system as an example to be emulated by the television industry. Every year, CARA rates more and more pictures. This reflects increases in production and made-for-video pictures. In addition, pictures made for television are sometimes submitted for rating, not only for television exhibition, but also for release on video. The rating symbols are widely known and accepted as a part of the American lexicon. The system has prevailed whenever there has been a legal challenge. The CARA rating system appears to be performing the function for which it was designed. It is occasionally criticized by those in the motion picture industry unhappy with a rating or ratings, by certain commentators who deplore any perceived restrictions and who can find fault with a particular aspect of the rating system or a specific rating, and by those who demand more restrictions and even censorship. CARA generally lets the ratings speak for themselves and does not publicly attempt to defend any specific rating. The rating system has survived for almost thirty years and continues to be widely used. Few institutions would have such longevity unless they provided a valuable public service. The rating system does (Price, 1998). Reference: Brown A. (1986). Commercial media in Australia: Economics, ownership, technology and regulation. University of Queensland Press: New York. Busch, Melanie, 1996. Television Broadcasters Working on Content Ratings System. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. Corn-Revere R. (1995). "Television violence and the limits of voluntarism". Yale Journal on Regulation 12, 187. Cowan G. (1979). See no evil: The backstage battle over sex and violence in television. Simon and Schuster: New York. Federman J. (1990). Media ratings: design, use and consequences. Mediascope: Studio City, California. Monroe E. Price, 1998.The V-Chip Debate: Content Filtering from Television to the Internet Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Paraschos E. E. and Paraschos M. (1997). Media law and regulation in the European Union: National, transnational and U.S. perspectives. Iowa State University Press: Ames, Iowa. Roth H. F. (1996). Cable TV: Regulation or competition Brookings Institution: Washington, D.C. Read More