Technology and Power :: Essays Papers

Technology and Power TV-Y: All children. The themes and elements in this program are specifically designed for a very young audience, including children from ages 2-6. TV-PG: Parental guidance suggested. The program may contain infrequent coarse language, limited violence, some suggestive sexual dialogue and situations. TV-M: Mature audiences only. This program may contain mature themes, profane language, graphic violence, and explicit sexual content (Craig ). These are just a few examples of the new rating system passed by the US Federal Communications Commission in January 1997. What television shows are appropriate for different age groups has been decided by the government. Is it not still up to the parents to decide what television their children will watch? In addition to the TV ratings that are now displayed at the start of each show, in the upper left-hand corner, they now have extra defining ratings. These include such things as V for violence, L for offensive language, and D for dialogue†¦sexual innuendo (Craig). At first glance, these types of ratings may seem like a good idea. All the responsibility of regulating a child's television viewing is gone, but this is not the case. "Each rating is assigned by the show's producer's, but there is no formal set of guidelines to apply." (NCTV). So it is not the government regulating television shows and setting standards for FCC ratings, it is the show's producers. This is something that many people may not realize when they sit down to watch a show and await the icon to appear in the left-hand corner of the television screen. There are many criticisms that go along with the validity of these ratings. For starters, violence, sex, and language are all placed in one category, for mature audiences. This gives us an extremely jaded view of what the show actually contains. There is violence in almost every news broadcast, which do not use the rating system, and some may feel a show containing a similar amount of violence is not categorized as mature. Also, each TV icon is displayed for only thirty seconds during the opening credits of the show. How many of us actually get to see the opening credits of every television show we watch? Media analyst, George Gerbner has established a set of four major problems with FCC television ratings. First, it does not work.