MEDIA CENSORSHIP LITERATURE REVIEW

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Media censorship literature review

Media censorship has been a great concern in any leadership progress and issues because of its power to protect and at the same time abuse those under the system of leadership and governance. Many people have always talked about this issue of media censorship and it turns out that most of the times the government which is the main perpetrator in media censorship can do nothing towards this since its efforts to protect a certain group of people or discriminate as well as make sure a certain people do not get to know some things is still vibrant. Therefore most of the time governments perpetrate this for evil intentions while in other times it is for good intentions aimed at maintaining peace and trying not to make the citizens panic in case they got some information from the media which was not intended. Therefore the major questions still arise and need to be discussed if media censorship is a form of protection or it is just a form of repression and discrimination (Abbasi, & Al-Sharqi, 2015).

Media censorship: Freedom versus responsibility elaborates what it means to have media censorship. Through this law article, Abbasi and Al-Sharqi concentrate on expounding the meaning of media censorship as well as stating clearly how it is used as a form of oppressing the people being ruled. They state that even though there are a widespread belief and phenomenon that media censorship is used to protect the citizens from harm and keep the country at peace this is not the major concern of the government. Rather the desire and will of the government are to keep its citizens unaware of information that can threaten the authorities.

Therefore this contrast brought out through this article is surprising because most of the people have been made to believe media censorship is to make sure that the population and that everyone is kept safe from harm and danger by preventing some kind of information from arriving at the homes of the citizens through the news. The article also goes along to indicate how everything is done from the point of news writers trying to get information that is sensitive to the point of the government using complex internet-related methods to prevent this information from being passed to the public (Abbasi, & Al-Sharqi, 2015). The article also informs us of how this information could be used and how the public could view the government administration if this information was available which they do not want and therefore kept as a secret.

The history of media censorship can be indicated as a natural way of doing things. For example, the fact that media accounts are not allowed to share nude pictures is a type of media censorship that is normal and which is formed by different social values and norms (Social Media Censorship: Causes, Extent, And Possible Solutions | Business, n.d.). However, in most cases, censorship happens with important and serious tenets of the social life of the citizens of a certain government whereby the inability of the people to access certain information can be viewed as a way of undermining their rights.

Censorship has evolved from the period of burning books to the current age of keeping a close watch over the internet and what is being posted and talked about. Censorship has not only happened with the governments but also social media accounts as well as other websites and sites which do not accept a certain kind of information that is considered misleading (Social Media Censorship: Causes, Extent, And Possible Solutions | Business, n.d.). For example, a friend of mine got his Twitter account blocked after posting that he has found a coronavirus cure. This, therefore, is a perfect example of censorship.

Censorship has a history from many perspectives. However, the very first example of media censorship can be seen as the incidence of Socrates being sentenced to drink poison due to his so-called corruption of the youth and introduction of unorthodox ideas into the lives of the young people (History Of Censorship Timeline | Preceden, n.d.). Therefore his ideas were seen as unwanted and those which were misleading and should not have been accessed by his students. In the same accord, the first censorship laws were developed in China in 300 AD. In the 18th century, the introduction of newspapers came along with censorship as well because some of the content had to be filtered and could not be accepted and fully recognized as important or needed. From 1855 censorship was also happening in the union of the soviet socialist movement and it had great impacts on the socialization of Russia. Between 1930 to 1940 the Nazis also burned any book written by Jewish writers in efforts to make sure that the people were not colonized or did not get the misleading ideas as a term of the Jews. In South Africa during the period of apartheid rule media censorship was also widespread as well as in Algeria during the period of the armed Islamic group. During this period there were executions of different media individuals and this was in efforts to curb whatever information they were relaying to the unacceptable public.

In their investigative research into censorship in china ‌Chen & Yang (2018), indicates that the question of censorship is very varied and it has numerous and different forms of answers which indicate that the government has very many intentions when it practices media censorship. These efforts are all seen as geared towards making sure that the government retains most of the information to do with its leadership and manner of doing things and therefore through this way it only remains very strong since it can operate peacefully knowing no one knows its secret operations and how they do everything‌ (Chen & Yang 2018). In this research, they also state that the best way for any regime to make sure censorship is successful is by making sure that the citizens do not need such kind of information at first which is a very important tactic used by the Chinese regime and therefore this makes it successful in keeping the information away from the citizens.

In conclusion therefore we can state that media censorship has its effects on the citizens of a particular regime as well as the news reporters and news in situations themselves since a certain type of information has to be kept at bay and never exposed which is always a challenging activity to take part in. this is because to some extent even the reporters themselves are not sure about some things they have to report but then they just have to report them without proper and clear information. Therefore this serves as a very important and essential part of most leadership and therefore it is important to re-evaluate its importance and what kind of information the public needs as well as its importance and effect.

References

Abbasi, I. S., & Al-Sharqi, L. (2015). Media censorship: Freedom versus responsibility. Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution, 7(4), 21-24.

Social Media Censorship: Causes, Extent, And Possible Solutions | Business. (n.d.). https://ipsnews.net/business/2020/10/01/social-media-censorship-causes-extent-and-possible-solutions/History Of Censorship Timeline | Preceden. (n.d.). Www.preceden.com. Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://www.preceden.com/timelines/155137-history-of-censorship

‌Chen, Y., & Yang, D. Y. (2018). The impact of media censorship: Evidence from a field experiment in China. Stanford Graduate School of Business, 4, 302.Xu, B., & Albert, E. (2014). Media censorship in China. Council on Foreign Relations, 25, 243.Billiani, F. (Ed.). (2014). Modes of censorship: National contexts and diverse media. Routledge.Germano, F., & Meier, M. (2013). Concentration and self-censorship in commercial media. Journal of Public Economics, 97, 117-130.

Demac, D. A., & Karp, W. (1988). Liberty denied: The current rise of censorship in America. New York: PEN American Center.

Lugo, J. (Ed.). (2008). The Media in Latin America. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).‌