Text from Ofcom's research into sexual imagery 2005 - any discussion

Ok here is the text from Ofcom's research: Language and Sexual Imagery in Broadcasting: A Contextual Investigation (2005) which you can find on their website here http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binarie...nguage.pdf

I thought I would put the most relevant example clip and responses. I'm interested in how you guys chew through this as this must be a big part of Ofcom's standard response.

Quote:Similar to the language clips, respondents were shown each clip in turn and asked to respond to a number of questions contained within a self completion booklet. Questions within the response booklet included:

• Overall level of offence (on a scale of 1-10 where 1=not at all offensive and 10=extremely offensive
• What time the clip should have aired on key channels
• How appropriate the actual transmission time was

As with the language clips, women were far more offended than men in general (though again, it should be pointed out that there was a high proportion of British Asian women in the session, which would have boosted the ‘offensiveness’ rating among women).
Teens and older people (55+) were more likely to be offended than other groups, with the 35-54 year olds being the least likely to be offended overall.
Of all ethnic groups, British Asians were most likely to be offended, with African-Caribbeans and whites having a very similar response overall.

Friendly TV: Babecast 2100

Interactive show available on multi-channel platforms. This clip involved two scantily clad women reading out text messages they were being sent and carrying out what the texts requested them to do. This included turning around and showing their bottoms to the cameras.

Context session response
This clip caused high levels of offence, with almost a half scoring it either 8, 9 or 10.
It was considerably more offensive to women, British Asians, older people and parents of older children than it was to other groups.
A third said that this type of content should never be shown on BBC or ITV and a fifth said it should never be on either Channel 4 or Five.
The time restriction for non-youth targeted digital channels was considered as no earlier than 2200, with a later slot at weekends.
The majority thought the transmission time was not suitable.

Focus group response
While this was thought to be one of the most offensive clips it did not generate much discussion in the focus groups. Many people simply dismissed the clip out of hand as being completely unsuitable for mainstream television at any time, and the personal response findings back this up.
The clip was thought to be both graphically too explicit, and distasteful because of what was happening. For example, the sidebar screens showing women ‘touching themselves’ and this particularly offended some, while the women on the main screen turning round and ‘shaking their arses’ upset others. For many it was also the casualness of the women’s discussion about the length of men’s penises and women’s vaginas which disturbed.

“The language and the way they were displaying and doing.” (Female, parent of younger children, British Asian, C2DE, multi-channel)

“I didn’t like the two girls spinning round showing a little bit of arse.” (Male, non-parent, 18-25, African-Caribbean, C2DE, terrestrial)

“Distasteful, rubbish” (Male, non-parent, 55+, C2DE, multi-channel)

There were just a few who found the clip inoffensive, but even for them, this type of material should be on after 2100 or 2200 even if on a satellite or cable channel, while the majority felt this material should be on a premium or subscription only channel. The focus of their concern, unsurprisingly perhaps, was that if it were on free-to-air satellite or digital channels that children might find it while surfing through channels.

“I would say after midnight, because that thing’s X-rated.” (Male, parent of older children, African-Caribbean, C2DE, terrestrial)

“Not on BBC or the five terrestrials.” (Female, non-parent, 26-34, BC1, multi-channel)

Summary points
• To these participants, imagery which suggests a casual attitude towards sex and which shows sexual display is not acceptable in this type of entertainment/interactive context
• The clear majority view of these participants is that such material should be on subscription channels only and/or confined to late night viewing (after 2200 at the earliest)

Whats interesting is that this kind of research has never been carried out on other categories.

There are plenty of people who would say "Many people simply dismissed the clip out of hand as being completely unsuitable for mainstream television at any time, and the personal response findings back this up." and "Distasteful, rubbish" about plenty of other shows that are available without restriction - Jeremy Kyle, Dirty Sanchez, Frank Skinner describing his one night stands, psychic shows and non stop casinos.

There is no baseline to measure this against.

At no stage did Ofcom or the reseachers attempt to define the threshold of acceptability.

There is no baseline to measure this against.

To add to what eccles said, there's also no accounting for reasonability/rationality/normality.

The point that's being overlooked or dismissed by OFCOM is the fact that the law pertains to 'reasonable people' - i.e. reasonable people do not find sex and bad language "offensive and harmful", only religious, narrow-minded, self-righteous bigots complain about such things.

The fact remains that in 2000 the High Court ruled that "based on all the available evidence a reasonable person would conclude that hardcore (R18-type) material was not harmful to persons under eighteen that might see it."

OFCOM's ban on R18 and, indeed, their stance on ordinary 18-rated softcore material only being available behind mandatory PIN, is utterly unreasonable and unnecessary. Indeed, the complaints OFCOM receive about supposed breaches of their Code are in the main made by unreasonable people taking 'offence' at what any reasonable, rational, normal person would consider perfectly acceptable viewing for adult audiences.

OFCOM's stance on adult material is clearly as unhinged as the OFCOM Content Board themselves - and that's the point. We have a committee of egotistic anti-porn wankstains churning out reams of worthless 'guidance' in response to the pathetic whims of a bunch of small-minded, religiously-corrupted, unreasonable tossers. In a Democratic Society we're supposed to pay a bit more attention to people's Rights than OFCOM have ever attempted. There's no balance, no reason, no pressing social need and absolutely NO HARD EVIDENCE whatsoever to support ANYTHING OFCOM have implemented. Indeed, they rely solely on hearsay, feelings and other inadmissible bullshit as the supposed 'evidence' to support their unreasonable censorial regime.

(23-12-2011 04:11 )IanG Wrote:  We have a committee of egotistic anti-porn wankstains churning out reams of worthless 'guidance' in response to the pathetic whims of a bunch of small-minded, religiously-corrupted, unreasonable tossers.
[...] they rely solely on hearsay, feelings and other inadmissible bullshit as the supposed 'evidence' to support their unreasonable censorial regime.

I don't think there's a better response than this. It says it all, really, and 'anti-porn' is the key phrase here.

ffs, there asking should these programs be on mainstream tv. when they know that they are niche programming. again ofcom takes them out of context so people would in general be offended... if ofcom thought they would do genuine harm or cause genuine offense they wouldnt allow the programming. instead they see marginal offense in reality so use that to make the channels cash cows to be plundered when the government decide to fix there budget...

There is not a single channel out there on the SKY EPG that doesn't have the potential to offend you sexual or otherwise on the subject of being offended well yes, on the subject of any harm caused to you no, it's all about perception and opinion on how you view certain subjects, the whole point of satelite and cable TV is to give the viewer's choice yet Ofcom are not allowing this to happen, like I said there is not a single channel that doesn't have the potential to offend you at any part of the day but that is the price you ultimately have to pay if you wish to live in a civilised democratic society.

Lies, damn lies, & statistics. statistics can be manipulated to give any result you want, to suit your needs. Ofcom are highly unlikely to produce a set of statistics that portray sexual content favourably, as they would be putting themselves out of a job.

I dare say the complete report could be used to produce set of statistics that would give you a totally opposite set of results to theirs.

Ofcom seem to think they are protecting our younger generation from potentially harmful material. But if that were true, then it would be band altogether. Some other countries of the EU show hardcore programs, and have nudity far more explicit than ours on mainstream TV. Do they have higher sexual crime than us? Do they have a higher percentage of under age pregnancies than us? The answer is no. If anything our sexual crime & under age pregnancy figures are worse than there's.

So you tell me. who's got the right balance. Ofcom or Europe?

Answers on a postcard, and sent to Ofcom please.

On the 'findings' themselves. The main points that are hard to avoid include that these focus groups attempt to be representative of a broad spread of people (not just the opinions of folks on a Babe Channel forum for example ) and unfortunately a majority of them found it offensive and think it should only be on late night subscription channels (child protection cited). What is more the clip in question seems to be only relatively low in content, sounds like babestation doing interaction with texts in the 9-10pm slot or something and flashing their arses. We all know the sexual content gets more graphic than that (if less explicit verbally).

So I guess that's where Ofcom think they can do what they do.

I see Ian's point that legally they need more than this (not just offense but actual harm as reasonably assessed), and I hope that is true (although it probably doesn't help to assume anyone opposed to babechannel content or find it offensive/harmful, such as the focus groups, must all be religious and bigoted lol).

To criticise the findings a little, the outcomes from the second question written in the booklet (What time the clip should have aired on key channels?) don't fit the outcomes stated from the focus groups.

I.e. it seems the answers given in the booklets suggests "A third said that this type of content should never be shown on BBC or ITV and a fifth said it should never be on either Channel 4 or Five." Yet in the focus group the majority concludes it should only be on subscription only channels. Those proportions don't add up, even if you include some degree of indecision, the clarity in distinguishing between the channels suggests a large proportion were willing to let the content go on channel 4!! Although this degree of inconsistency would be common from these kinds of chatty focus groups.

But it might also indicate a kind of bias in the process (think someone else said this on another thread), that in a focus group which includes ageing mothers, it would be understandable for most folks to assume a more moralistic stance in public (not wishing to offend the maternal figures in the group). Whereas if they only got their opinions from individuals sending in written submissions they probably would get more liberal outcomes.

Also for example, my own mother hates Jonathan Ross and totally got on that bandwagon when he and Russell Brand were pilloried for joking on the radio. She didnt catch the joke anywhere but would have given a foul response no matter what (similar to what Eccles said above).

But I don't think these criticisms are all that killer. All they do is tinker with the focus group process. No fast joy there I feel. (Quick! someone commission another study!!)

The thing is I don't recall ever being approached by Ofcom with that so-called survey they conducted back in 2005, and if I was in the cold light of day in the middle of the high street with all to see to give my opinions on the babe channels I'd probably say mind your own fucking business, certain things remain private and that's one of them, I don't go about my public life discussing the show's and never will. Also to put it into context the people approached by Ofcom were more than likely the type of individuals who were likely to give them the answer's they were looking for anyway. Thirdly was this survey ever carried out, I don't see any evidence of this survey ever taken place, if you ask me it's bullshit propoganda dreamed up by those at Ofcom HQ in order to justify the need for a television censor and to keep themselves in a job.

Good points about the 2005 survey. One vital thing it lacked was any context or baseline. As Roquentin quoted "a majority of them found it offensive and think it should only be on late night subscription channels (child protection cited)." but Ofcom have never asked similar questions about other types of offensive material such as realistic horror/torture porn, violent war films, gambling, cage fighting, female boxing, psychic channels, etc.

Take gambling or psychic channels. The religious Afro-Caribbean and Asian women who took part in the survey would regard both categories as dangerous and against their religions. Yet there are a huge number of gambling and psychic shows on evening TV sucking money out of the vulnerable.

It is quite possible that if a survey had asked about the categories above a majority would have said that they too should be banned from free to air.

The 2005 survey was based on focus groups with a total of about 140 people. Women, Africans and Asians were over represented and no attempt was made to correct this. African women and Asian women are well known for being strongly religious and conservative.

By contrast the biannual Media Tracker surveys are based on interviews with about 10,000 people and are statistically corrected for age, gender, ethnicity and socio economic group to give statistically valid data.

The 2005 survey was described as "qualitative" (measuring quality, or feelings) rather than "quantitative" (based on hard numbers). A bunch of people were asked how they felt about things. Some questions and topics overlapped, some were asked in group situations, some were based on anonymous questionnaires, some before/after viewing highly selective clips. Inevitably this results in inconsistencies.

However it is difficult to avoid the impression that the questions were badly structured, in such a way that no clear conclusions could be drawn. There is nothing to compare against, and no attempt to define a threshold of acceptabilty. The 2009 survey had similarities, and some adult content was rated about as acceptable as BBC content and the infamous Alan Titchmarsh dildo show*.

*BBC: Rome, clip 3, 24% unacceptable, 43% acceptable, +17% more acceptable than unacceptable.
Red Hot 40+ trailer: clip 9 26% unacceptable, 43% acceptable, +16%.
Playboy clip 7: 29% unacceptable, 40% acceptable, +11%.
Alan Titchmarsh, ITV 3pm, clip 1, 42% unacceptable, 36% acceptable, -6%.

Final point - the Content Board themselves seem to have had concerns and asked for future surveys to be peer reviewed.