Music video regulation By Laura Knowles

Regulation/regulator: Regulation is a set of rules and/or guidelines

which are agreed between media organisations as well as public organisations.

These rules/guidelines are made in order to make media organisations more accountable from what they publish.

These are usually overseen by independent regulatory body who may have the power to issue fines or some sort of warning.

Should music videos be regulated? I remember when I was younger, some music videos on YouTube would have an

age rating on them so I couldn’t watch them, however now it seems that music videos online are hardly ever regulated anymore (although some still do).

I agree that some music videos should have a rating on them due to some being inappropriate for younger viewers to watch (for example, you don’t always like to think that that there's an 8 year old child somewhere watching Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’.

Due to the hypodermic needle theory, I think that it is a good idea to sometimes put regulations on certain music videos if needed.

This theory suggests that audiences are passive and will accept messages that they see in media (like it is being injected into them).

I think that there is some extent to what younger children should be allowed to see and be exposed to (e.g. any bad behaviour or swearing that they see in music videos might make them feel as if it is okay to go around doing what they want, referring to acting bad).

Why I don’t think regulating is highly effective: I don’t really believe that putting ratings on certain music videos (or any

content) will stop younger viewers watching things if they want to. I believe this because now, it is so easy for people (even kids) to say

that they are older than they are on YouTube (and other social media platforms). When doing this there is also nothing that has to be done to prove the age of the person using the platform.

Therefore, I don’t think that putting ratings on music videos would be something that would successfully make younger people stop watching more controversial videos.

Another point of why I think it wouldn’t be successful is due to the fact that younger people always seem to want to see things even more if they know that it is controversial or has the ‘Parental advisory content’ sign on it. (they want to in a way feel as though they are being ‘rebels’ for watching the videos.

The BBFC: The BBFC is an organisation which controls the regulations put on things

such as movies and music videos etc. Because content can be put on the internet by anyone (anyone can

produce explicit content) it is hard for the BBFC to stop this from happening.

Because of this, people are able to report content on the internet if they think that it is something that shouldn’t really be there or seen by younger viewers.

Obviously, content on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter can be reported. However, the accuracy can be questioned because sometimes controversial or explicit content isn’t taken down or acted upon fully. (e.g. sometimes when a video is taken down, it is able to somehow get back on the internet again which is something that should really be controlled).

The accuracy can also be questioned due to the fact that all of the checking after something has been reported is done by a computer. (can a computer really see whether something is inappropriate or not?)

The original music video for Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ is an example of a music video which did have to be regulated by the BBFC.

The original music video showed women without any tops on walking around and dancing with Robin which was said to be too inappropriate and it wouldn’t have been allowed to be shown on TV or online.

Therefore, the BBFC’s regulations led to a ‘clean’ version of the music video where the women are shown to be wearing more clothes.

This now means that it can be shown on TV.

David Cam

eron

introduced

new

age ratin

gs on

music vid

eos in

2014.