Behavioral Regulation

Behavioral regulation: Controls on the content of media.

Supporters of behavior regulation:

• If left to the market, corporate media will produce low-cost, profitable content, which limits choices.
• Want government involvement in helping parents, teachers raise healthy children.
• Do not want unlimited exposure to inappropriate content.
• Points to ratings, which favor certain audiences, as a failure of free-market to produce diverse and interesting to many media.
• Believe media should serve the public interest, and thus argue that unregulated content (gratuitous violence, bias news) does not serve the public.

Opponents of behavior regulation:

• Freedom of speech must not be hindered at any cost.

Obscenity vs. Indecency

• Obscene: if something is deemed obscene, it has no First Amendment protection, and is considered utterly without redeeming social importance.
• Indecent speech is protected under First Amendment. Essentially holds that something may not be appropriate for all viewers (particularly children), at all times, but is not utterly without redeeming social importance.