A Tonic Mixture

By MARRIS WEIGHT

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

The deregulation of the media industry has seen successive governments advocating community responsibility and the strengthening of families as a means of maintaining community standards.

The previous coalition labour government created the families commission.  The function of the families commission is to promote the role of the family in the setting of acceptable behavioural standards.

The current national government is taking a strong stance towards crime and responsibilities parents have towards their children.

If the government expects parents to play a greater role in addressing societal issues such as youth crime and exposure of youth to violence arising from media deregulation the government needs to ensure there is an adequate framework in place to allow this to occur.  Current statistics in regards to issues ranging from youth crime to the type of programming options available to caregivers would suggest that this is not the case.

Previous surveys have shown United States' fictional programmes have more than twice the incidents of violence than programmes produced in the UK, New Zealand or Australia.

Two thirds of New Zealand’s TV content originates from the United States.

Few people would deny the link between viewing violence and future behavioural patterns.

It is no coincidence that New Zealand shares having one of the highest crime rates in the western world with the United States.

If the New Zealand government is genuine in its desire to reduce violence, it must start by acknowledging the role that television has in influencing and setting societal standards and be willing to take a proactive approach to the establishing of standards.

Currently the code of practice is reactionary in nature.  The New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority is unable to take any action until a complaint is received further more; this approach is very narrow in focus.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority is unable to play any role in influencing the aggregate adverse material screened on television.

Under the Broadcasting Act 1989, there is considerable reliance on self-regulation by broadcasters.

The broadcasting standard of the voluntary code of practice on programme classification makes broadcasters "responsible for classifying programmes, displaying this information and broadcasting the classified programme in the correct time band."

There is an inherent tension here between the commercial element of broadcasters and community standards.

This inherent tension feeds an insidious desire by broadcasters to continuously push the boundaries of what should be considered acceptable under the code of practice.

This has inevitably resulted in a dummying down of programming material and standards.

Currently the classification of programmes is a function of the broadcaster.

If the government is serious about tackling the issues of violence and crime in the community as well as encouraging the community to play a proactive role in advocating societal standards there needs to be a mechanism that allows community interest groups to play a greater role in determining the charter by which programmes are classified.

The community also needs to have the ability to play an active role in the classification of programmes.

What is notably absent in New Zealand is a wide range of informed and organized TV advocacy groups.  It is not surprising though, given the minimal influence the current system would allow them.

One means of encouraging the community to participate more actively in the setting of community standards would be to shift the responsibility of programme classification from that of the broadcaster to an independent agency consisting of both community and broadcasting interest representation.

The establishment of such an organization would encourage a more collaborative and informed approach between broadcasters and the wider community to the classification and screening of programmes.