The Effects Debate

The Effects Debate revolves around media censorship and the way that media is able to manipulate its audience in a negative way and that there is a need to be able to control media in order to protect its audience. People who come up with the "things" that need regulating are categorised into 3 groups:

People who voice their concerns for danger within the media without having any real or true evidence, people such as Politicians, The Media itself and Campaigning groups.

People who have conducted research into effects on the media and whether things have positive or negative effects on the audience

The audience itself who are subjective to the debate, this is typically teenagers who are just experiencing a whole new world of media , the studies usually revolve around violence games such as Grand Theft Auto.

The censorship of media that is a big factor in The Effects Debate is often misunderstood and confused with similar terms such as Regulation and Classification.
Regulation is very political and is most typically put in force by government this is called State Regulation, regulation exists within media and the media in order for some things to just not be allowed within media, also media itself puts its own version of regulation onto certain pieces of media. For example video games are often given an age rating, to say what ages each game is suitable for people to play, this is known as Self Regulation.

Classification is the restriction of access of media material based on age, the main and best example of this is the BBFC who are responsible for film classification which means putting a restriction on the age of a film so as that anyone below this age is strictly not allowed by law to view this film. This is covered on all formats of film may that be Cinema, DVD or any other format.

Censorship is the most post-modern type of restriction of all the three conceptions, censorship is when people with power may that be the media or someone high up in authority control what we as the audience see, hear, say, touch and whatever else within media products

There are two philosophical approaches to this theory,  Psychological and Sociological.
 Psychological focuses on what is happening in the brain of the audience. Sociological look at the impact on the person itself and the wider look such as the effects on society, the two go hand in hand together as if a person is affected on a psychological level this could also affect a number of other people meaning it affecting a number of people meaning the effect will exist on a sociological level. An example of this is a young boy playing an extremely violent video game this is just a psychological issue at the moment as it only affects his own mind personally but if others play this game and it becomes social then that is where sociological issues come into play meaning society may suffer problems such as an increase in violence, there is no 100% way to prove this theory but there are some good and related theories that people link together such as massacres blamed on rock music etc. The effects debate is kind of like a brief insight into the other theories without going in depth or beneath the surface. The video people shows how media is sometimes blamed without any real evidence for sociological issues, Marilyn Manson was pinpointed as a cause of a mass school shooting in Columbine, USA. Without any real evidence the media highlighed him and his music as a cause of the shootings and stated that the murderers were big fans of his music which turned out to be a lie. This again brings censorship into play, as the media control what has been said, what we see without getting the true opinions of people.