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TV

What’s the most misspelled word submitted in FCC indecency complaints?

We’ve all seen stuff on TV that we felt was questionable at times.

Whether it be the infamous Wardrobe Malfunction at the Super Bowl to graphic news coverage, there have been times that TV producers have pushed the envelope more than they should in order to meet artistic goals (or to gain a little press for themselves).

No longer is after 10p considered safe harbor for language or nudity, as cable channels don’t have to adhere to the same FCC regulations that broadcasters have to contend with.  So the broadcasters are forced to make programming decisions that reflect today’s society.

But just because they CAN make these choices, doesn’t mean they SHOULD make these choices.

Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication
Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication

Categories
10 Things Book

The Top 100 Banned Books, 2000-2009

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The American Library Association (and the nation’s libraries in general) have a tough job – they need to make available practically every book ever written, yet they get yelled at for making certain books available.

Unfortunately, books don’t come with parental ratings guides. The best that a parent can hope for is that a particular book has been classified correctly into “children’s”, “young adult”, or “adult” material – but even then, there’s rarely a problem with a youngster deciding to read at a level above their head. It’s oft viewed as a sign of advanced brain development.

So when it comes to deciding what books their children should read, it really should be up to the individual parents to determine.  Parents have control over what media their children have access to at home, so books should be included in that material. 

There’s nothing wrong with a book being written and made available in a library or local bookstore. If you don’t believe that a particular book is for your child, then take the book away from them – but don’t force the issue by making those books unavailable to everyone else who may be interested (or not offended) in reading the same material.

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Movies shopping Websites

Check this site out to see differences between censored and uncensored version of films

Obscene, Indecent, Immoral and Offensive: 100+ Years of Censored, Banned, and Controversial Films
Obscene, Indecent, Immoral and Offensive: 100+ Years of Censored, Banned, and Controversial Films

Not everyone is a fan of censorship.

But sometimes, movie studios release different versions of films to meet different audience needs.  For example, a version of a film shown on an cross-country airplane flight (“this film has been edited for content”) may be cropped differently or have a different audio track than the same film seen on HBO, on DVD, or when downloaded from Netflix.

Sometimes, the studios even release different versions of the films based on actual ratings received from the MPAA — they may sell an R-rated version at Wal-Mart, but an unrated version via Amazon.  Or a PG-version in the United States, and an NC-17 version in Europe.

So the question that Web Watch readers should be asking is “how do we go about to find out the differences between all these different versions of films, to be sure that the version we’re watching isn’t censored… or if it is censored, what are we missing?”