Ethical, Moral and Political Issues

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Ethical, Moral and Political exam questions

Censorship

Privacy and Surveillance

Standards

Contemporary Issues

Ethical, moral and political debates

• Censorship (personal and cultural)
• Privacy and surveillance
• Standards (media/public/private)

This section of the paper is intended to be the 'wild card' element of Module 6 - the question set will be unpredictable - something contemporary, which a normally well informed Communication Studies student could expect to have an opinion on and be able to apply their communications knowledge to, independently. Loosely, the issues are as named above but if you watch the news, follow debates about current communication issues in television, news etc you might be able to answer the question - only you can decide whether to go for it or not.

Censorship

The key questions for this issue are:

What should be censored?
Personally?
Culturally?
Politically?

Why would we want to censor anything?
Effects model debate - see page

Is censorship the same as regulation?
Brainstorm the answers on your own or in small groups

1. Which communication models would represent this process (censorship)?
   (Gerbner, Westley and Maclean (mass cultural censorship), Goffman, Johari's Window?
2. How are things censored?   Regulatory bodies have a role in this but the current situation as regards regulation of communication is about to change radically with the new Communications Bill.   Click on the links below to investigate how this will happen.