Written Communication Ii Assignment

Written Assignment 4

Allisha Wennersten

Thomas Edison State College

Television is something that almost every household owns and watches. So what laws and policies are out there that control what can and cannot be seen on television? My next two essays will cover what obscene and indecent material is and how they are different. It will also go into what the Fair Doctrine was and what the Equal Opportunities Rule is and how it affects us.

Essay One: Using examples, explain the difference between obscene and indecent materials.

The first thing is explaining the differences of obscene and indecent is to know the difference between the two. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and broadcasters are prohibited, by statute and regulation, from airing obscene programming at any time. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, to be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (i.e., material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts); (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The FCC states material is indecent if, in context, it depicts or describes sexual or excretory organs or activities in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium. In each case, the FCC must determine whether the material describes or depicts sexual or excretory organs or activities and, if so, whether the material is patently offensive. The FCC looks at three primary factors when analyzing broadcast material: (1) whether the description or depiction is explicit or graphic; (2) whether the material dwells on or repeats at length...