GMAT Essays (AWA)

"In some countries, television and radio programs are carefully censored for offensive language and behaviour. In other countries, there is little or no censorship."
In your view, to what extent should government or any other group be able to censor television or radio programs? Explain, giving relevant reasons and/or examples to support your position.

Censorship is an effective tool in the hands of authorities to control the publication of bad elements among the society only if handled properly. Only optimum censorship and that too in the selective areas can lead to desired consequences.

Censorship sometimes results in exactly the opposite effect than the desired one. For example, the movie "Cannibal Holocaust" has been banned in most of the countries with the objective of not provoking inhuman thoughts among the masses. But the sole reason of its getting banned in the countries makes many of us curious about what it contains and we end up in watching the uncensored version of it. It would have been better if instead of banning the movie, an edited and less intense version was made available to the masses.

South Asian countries like India, Pakistan which have stricter laws of censorship for the entertainment industry achieve no fair cultural advantage than the developed nations which gives appropriate flexibility to the creators of cinema to showcase what they want to show and leave it to the audience to pick the best.

As a matter of fact, the degree of censorship is a mark of cultural integrity of the society. In Islam, it is mandatory for women to wear "burqas". Is that a real sign of progressive society? It shows how conservative religion islam is. People are the best judges of what they must see and what not. It must be left to the society to decide what is best for them, not enforced by the government.

On a cautionary note, in cases where the audience or the target population is naive and ignorant of the side effects of what it is viewing, it shall be educated about the possible side effects. One example of this is the warning note that appears on advertisements that includes dangerous actions or stunts.

If we consider television and radio, which are viewed by all age groups and controlling the audience is not a possibility, censorship plays an integral role to direct the show content. For example, TV show "Big Boss" telecasted on Colors channel was allowed to be telecasted only after 11pm when most kids in the households are asleep. In such cases where it is not possible to control the target audience, it is always better to be on safer side and avoid any mal content to befallen on naive audience.

In conclusion, censorship plays important role where it is not possible to control the target audience lilke TV and radio. But in cases like theatres, cinemas, censorship authority should take a back seat and let the creativity rule. Let the country's sensible audience decide what is good and what is bad.

4/6

thanks..
any improvement points though.