Impose Stricter Controls on Press Intrusion

Impose stricter controls on press intrusion

In contemporary time, the media plays an important role in influencing people in different ways. The freedom of the press becomes a hot topic in social life. The press normally not only includes newspapers and periodicals, but also television, radio and reports on the Internet. Eribo (1997) pointed out “Press freedom is defined as the availability of a free marketplace of idea and information for all the citizenry without fear, favor, intimidation or obstacles.” The main purpose of press freedom aims to let people know the truth of matters and express their own opinions without any control. The government should not use the mass media to control the transmission of the information, censor the sensitive news, interfere the press public reports and forbid other democratic rights (Eribo 1997). However, Jefferson (1803) claimed “It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press”. There is still no evidence show that the existent legislation is enough to protect public’s private life rather than suffering from the press intrusion (Moore 2003, p. 10). This paper will show reasons why the authorities should take more effective measures to impose stricter controls on press intrusion. Therefore, the following reasons will be discussed here: the effects on the violent information, the press freedom in wartime and the conflict between privacy and the freedom of expression.

Firstly, the media violent information has some negative impacts on children and adolescents. Children who watch televised violence are more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways to solve problems (Beresin 2015), because they cannot distinguish fictive plot and real world at a very young age. They are more likely to imitate the aggressive actions on TV (ibid). Studies demonstrate that there are average 6 violent acts per hour on TV (Kunkel 2007). Most of the violent programs contain lethal acts, and half of the shows use gun to solve problems (ibid). A lot of people think media violence has no impact on them, because they never kill people after watching violent TV programs or newspapers. However, it does not mean it has no potential influences on increasing aggressive thoughts. A 15-year longitudinal research indicate “heavy viewers of violent TV shows in 1st and 3rd grade were three times more likely to abuse their spouses and be convicted of criminal behaviour by the time they were in their 20s” (Bushman & Huesmann 2012, pp. 231-248). In July 2012, James Holmes, a 24-year-old boy, committed terrorist attack at the cinema in Colorado (Michael 2012).  He imaged to be a character from the Batman movies and imitated the scene from the movie. Holmes used canister as a weapon and then shot audiences. 70 people were injured, and 12 people were killed (ibid). Children might become “immune” to the pain and harm and lack sensitivity of aggressive behaviours. Dr. Grafman, Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, US, said if children watch the same violent videos for a long time, the violent images will blunt their reaction and they will express less emotion than people who do not watch it (Stephen 2010). The research is conducted by Dr Grafman with 22 boys. They were requested to watch 60 video clips. There were 3 degrees of the violent actions and all the clips are randomly selected by system. Children were asked to press the button to compare the degree of the violent actions in the adjacent clips. Their brain activities were recorded by MRI scans when they were watching the videos. The result shows that when boys watched more violent videos over time, their emotional activation decreased in brain regions. And if they continued to watch the violent clips, they will be less sensitive to violence, and became more acceptable to violence, and more likely to commit aggressive acts (ibid).

Secondly, the effects on press freedom for military and war can be devastating. At first, the confidentiality of the military strategies is the essential aspect of the whole war. It will cause unpredictable damage if the information falls into the hands of the enemies. So the government should pay more attention to the press control during wartime (Hiebert 1995). In the 1991’s Gulf war, most British people thought they needed to know all truths from journalists, whether such information could jeopardize the government. The journalists also believed they had responsibility to tell the public the truth and revealed the next steps that their country tried to take action. In this situation, the military tried to tell the unreal information to the journalists. The aim was to tell the wrong steps to deceive the enemies. The enemies would be confused and the military could survive at the end. In addition, Hiebert (1995) pointed out “public relation is a primary weapon of war”. The government can use the mass media to win the public support. Both the Vietnam War and Gulf war are called “media war”, but the different attitude to control on the media led completely different results. The Vietnam War is called “living room war” (Griffin 2010). The fact is that the American can watch all situations on the battlefield when they turn on TV every day. All the news that the press reported did not censored by the government. Most Americans didn’t know the government’s situation. When they saw the bloody images, they fell nauseated and sympathized and changed their attitudes to against their own military. Some experts claim the reason why Vietnam War failed is that the television reports influenced the public support. The control of press reported in Gulf war is more rigorous than the control on Vietnam War. The military paid more attention to the military supervision. For example, the journalists could not access to the battlefield without permission. All the reports must carefully checked by the military officer in a variety ways before it reported. In addition, the sensitive news should be controlled in order to make sure the public relation goes well. More aggressive strategy made the Gulf war succeed in the end. In the meantime, the method to control the press in gulf war has become the modern for all the following military action during the wartime.

The third reason for imposing control on the media freedom is concerned about the privacy. In order to control the conflict between privacy, the press complaints commission (PCC) was established. However, it did not operate as effectively as people thought (Moore 2003). People even have no guarantee to protect their own privacy, especially celebrities. The politician Ron Davies, was compelled to quite Wale minister politics when his sexual preferences was exposed (Wintour 2003). The photographers published in the New Law Journal (ibid). Mr. Davies declared it is a terrible experience that the journalist from the Sun kept watching on him in several weeks (ibid). He said, “I don’t feel devastated, I feel badly bruised. This has taken a huge toll on me, physically, emotionally and mentally (ibid). ” The sexual preference should not be the obstacle at his political career. It is difficult to judge whether politicians’ private life should be exposed to the public, because people may have different attitudes towards at election time (ibid). What’s more, phone hacking is another way to violate people’s privacy without scruple. The investigators not only use phone hacking to eavesdrop public privacy, but also intercept people’s voicemail and change the information. There is a very famous case illustrates the serious effect without control the media intrusion. Milly Dowler, a 13 years old girl, was murdered on March 2002. Her phone was hacked by the investigator who worked at the News of the world. She was missing when she went home after class. The investigator deleted the messages from her family after she was murdered. This act gave her family the false information and misled her family trust she still alive (Davies and Hill 2011). The unethical scandal caused the News of the world shut down on July 2011(Gahhatt and Datty 2011). The PCC is not sufficient to prevent the intrusion of the press like above cases. Thus, People can’t always trust PCC because the lack of independence (Moore 2003).Therefore, the country should impose more specific controls on press intrusion to protect people’s right to privacy.