RE: Open letter to Ofcom
I just posted a little piece on the Mica thread about Ofcom and 'Rules' and it got me wondering - what generally accepted standards did Ofcom apply when deciding that, 'providing adequate protection to members of the public from the inclusion of offensive and harmful material in radio and TV programmes' (as reqd. by section 319(2)(f) of the Comms Act), can be achieved by, Rule 2.3 "offensive and/or harmful material must be justified by context"?
When does context ever provide adequate protection from the inclusion of offensive and/or harmful material?
What context would provide the most protection from the inclusion of offensive and/or harmful material?
May be some examples or hypothetical situations might highlight the pros and cons of Rule 2.3? For instance; If Dot Cotton suddenly did a striptease in the Vic and performed an exotic sex show with ping pong balls and cigars, this would likely cause a riot in and around every BBC centre and pickets outside Ofcom HQ. But if this outrageous behaviour were justified by the context that Dot believed she'd been possessed by an evil sex fiend demon it might just pass Ofcom's supposed 'adequate protection'. Of course, we all trust the BBC would never allow such a thing to be shown in any graphic detail, indeed, we'd expect rather more taste and decency from the writers and producers the BBC employ.
Now what if such a scene as above took place with a ravishing beauty in place of Dot and in the context of a late night sexually explicit horror spoof movie on an 'adult' sex channel? Surely now such scenes might be expected, indeed, they're wholly justified in such a context, aren't they? Well, aren't they? I believe so. I'm sure any rational person would agree so.
My question to you, and Ofcom, is this: What generally accepted standards state that providing adequate protection to members of the public from the inclusion of offensive and harmful material in programmes, can be achieved by allowing the inclusion of such material if it can somehow be justified by context?
Who wrote these standards? How are they supposed to work? What do they actually say about content the context and protection? Why do Ofcom believe this rationale satisfies their Standards Objectives? Does it indeed satisfy their Standards Objectives and how is this being tested, measured, reported and, if necessary, corrected or adjusted to meet their Standards Objectives?
And please folks, feel free to try and find these generally accepted standards, I'm sure we'd all love to see them. If its something obvious I've completely overlooked please correct my understanding.
I can fully appreciate what Ofcom's Code says and how showing 'naughty bits' can be justified in the context of sexual education and, of course, sexually explicit material of any kind. If potentially offensive sexual content is, as is clear to me, justified by any sexually explicit context, how can Ofcom keep claiming it isn't?
Sex ed programmes, like 'adult' entertainment, contain potentially offensive sexually explicit material - i.e. cocks and fanny to be blunt - at least all the ones I've ever seen did. What about you? What the hell have Ofcom been watching if they don't understand this simple premise?
A new dittie: The Buggers 2010 (Ofwatch slight return) http://www.babeshows.co.uk/showthread.ph...#pid556229
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