Censorship

Censorship can be used in multiple forms in the media in order to try and protect and prevent the vulnerable in society from being provoked or mentally scarred from various explicit content showed on a day to day basis. Many people argue against the use of censorship as it may destroy a message trying to be delivered in a song by replacing particular lyrics with less effective (more suitable) lyrics, I think as well as leaving the audience possibly un sure of the meaning of the song due to half of it missing or being filled in with words which make no sense, this could benefit certain listeners as violent or drug related descriptive lyrics could provoke them for the worse in reality. Censorship is used in the forms;age ratings,watershed,blurring and bleeping to cover up or stop certain people from seeing explicit content which involves drug taking,nudity and other topics that are deemed politically incorrect by our government. 

I personally think censorship is key in preventing young and vulnerable people from thinking crime,drugs and domestic violence is the normality, as we know if young people grow up surrounded by t.v programmes which display these harmful,sensitive topics, they may begin to think that type of behaviour is acceptable in todays society. For example in recent times a young 17 year old male stabbed his girlfriend to death and dismembered her body after watching and becoming obsessed with the american tv series Dexter, this is a clear reminder that even though many people would never contemplate this horrific act, content like this where the protagonist is a cold blooded killer can become very influential to vulnerable individuals like this 17 year old leading to horrific acts. Even though i think the watershed is successful is stoping young children seeing content that may scare them, I think if you are like this 17 year old boy and obsessed with gory,horrific entertainment like 'Dexter' age ratings and watersheds are completely helpless as there are many ways illegally he could access and watch the series. This leaves me wondering if possible influential content like 'Dexter' and 'Breaking Bad' should ever be produced as both t.v series connote horrific crimes like murder and mass methamphetamine production to be almost positive, as we see Dexter as the best forensic blood splatter specialist in the USA and Walter White as a extremely talented chemist. Even though the t.v series may also show the consequences each suffer for their actions, I think the vulnerable people in society will be largely effected by this content and even gain inspiration like the 17 year old English boy, however because organisations like Netflix make so much money from t.v series like this, they are not willing to ban these shows purely because of the extremely large amount of money it makes for them, and ultimately this is all they care about, like how gun laws are dealt with in America. 

In conclusion I think many methods of censorship are successful for younger audiences being exposed to content that may damage their innocent young minds, but most young people and adults are able to access almost any content through the internet in todays modern society, unfortunately meaning most people will definitely be exposed to content that may scar them mentally at one point in their lives.