Media Freedom and Pluralism: Media Policy Challenges in the Enlarged Europe

Chapter 7: Television: The Stepmother?

CHaPTer 7 Television: The Stepmother? lilia raycHeva 7.1. introduction The virtual environment occupies a notable place in the interests of children. studies show that they spend a substantial part of their time watching TV programs, surfing on the internet, and chatting and texting on mobile phones. The products and services offered by the new information and communications technologies strongly compete with, and often challenge, family values and knowledge from school. undoubtedly , information derived from these products and services affect children’s intellect, psyche, and behavior. The virtual world is rich in positive and negative behavioristic models, which children, due to the peculiarities of their psychological development, transfer into the real environment too quickly. Their preferences for certain types of models change as they mature, and it is exactly during puberty that they become extremely vulnerable and their choices unpredictable. Quite often children see the audiovisual world and cyberspace as a shelter, where they feel free from everyday stress, fear, and loneliness. The TV set, the computer, or even the mobile phone display give them dialogue and social contacts that they are missing in the real world. However, the audiovisual world and cyberspace are not yet a safe shelter for minors . This brings to the fore the issue of positive and negative aspects offered by virtual reality: does it broaden the mental outlook, or is it just an escape from an unfriendly social environment? This text examines some current developments in the protection of minors from harmful and inappropriate TV content. The analysis concentrates on the regulatory challenges in line with the pan-european broadcasting media instruments. The paper also covers some of the regulatory practices of the Bulgarian Council for electronic Media. i4 Beata book.indb 125 2010.05.09. 10:22 126 Media Freedom and Pluralism 7.2. Television and violence Television has widely been called the “third parent,” both because of its educational function and because TV programs often replace the physical presence of parents in the daily routine of the child. institutions, civil society, business, and the media have failed to coordinate in a purposeful and systematic way to protect children from dangerous content. instead there have been only sporadic noisy campaigns (usually after a tragic or a provocative event) that only consolidate the position of the child as an object, a victim of circumstances , and not as a subject of society, enjoying full rights. Minors have no rights whatsoever either in the domain of media regulation, or in self-regulation or programming. They cannot choose their family, or their curricula, or the society they are living in. instead, they must conform to the choices of their parents or guardians. The easiest and most promising way out of their victimization seems to be to adopt aggressive or asocial behavioral models. Contemporary audiovisual programming has been proven to promote such behavior. The intensive development of audiovisual structures, and especially of television worldwide, has led to exponential growth in the number of channels, and sharp increases in the amount of air time, thus increasing the number of violent incidents witnessed on television. Videocentrism has almost abolished language barriers. a crime film or thriller, not to mention a porn film, could be made solely by editing the picture, sound, and specific effects. speech simply elucidates the action a little and guides the viewer, who either turns into an investigator (as in the crime movies), or into a victim (as in the thrillers) of the screen narration. Tension builds up chiefly by means of visuality and paraverbalism. More than a decade ago, Bertrand Tavernier, incensed by the way in which television flagrantly violated people’s privacy, made his wonderful film La mort en direct (“death Watch”). He showed how, in pursuit of sensation, a TV company implanted a mini-transmitter into a terminally ill cancer patient (romy schneider) to record her last days. sidney lumet’s Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky, posited another dramatic situation. seeking desperately to boost his failing broadcast at the local TV station, its host announced that he would kill himself i4 Beata book.indb 126 2010.05.09. 10:22 Television 127 in front of the cameras. (Two years before the film’s release, a 29-yearold reporter in Florida actually shot herself on a live news broadcast.) For a couple of weeks, the ill-starred host, Howard Beale, grew from a miserable misfit into a sought-after prophet, and he boosted his...