(Term 1: Week 3)
This week we watched several videos and discussed topics related to how politics shape what being made in media. Below are some notes I have taken and my further research regarding this topic especially effects to film, cinema, television, advertising, game and online streaming.
Video: Media Institution: Crash Course Government & Politics #44 by Crash Course
Since a long time ago, politics and the media have been closely linked. In term of politics, media provides information so people can get involved and make decisions in politics. When economically inclined, media only tell stuffs that they think people will find useful rather than everything to save cost, time and effort researching.
The three major media types are print, broadcast and internet. Print, such as newspapers and magazines are the oldest form of media. They tend to offer more detail and comprehensive news stories which are the reason it is still the main source for educated elites whose opinions tend to matter a lot in making policy. Broadcast media like radio and television have a significant drawback in shaping public opinion because the stories are usually short and therefore less informative, despite their massive reach.
The third major media is the internet, which is considered the most powerful since it has many forms; text, video, audio and live streaming. Its primary advantage is the information can be updated and spread very quickly. The internet also witnesses the grows of social medias. Almost every political candidates and important figures now have their own social media profile to quickly convey their opinions to public without any restrictions and delays.
The media, as the name suggests, mediates information and shapes it in powerful way.
How Politics Shape Media
While continuing the study on this topic, I found that, as far as how media plays an important role in politics, politics also have a very significant impacts to media. This influence the evolution of creative contents such as film and advertising and interactive contents like games. Politics are usually related to the social and cultural situations in a country which affects the level of censorship, how the media contents will be expressed, and public acceptance towards the contents. Nowadays people pay more attention to the rights of certain groups, racism issues and equality, so this will greatly influence politics and media as well.
Different countries have several different level of rating systems for media contents. Whether they have five, seven or more, the ratings are designed to classify the contents with regard to suitability of the audiences. Most of the censorships are revolve around sexual contents, violence, abuse, offensive language, religious and racist contents. Some contents can also get banned or censored because of negative portrayal of certain countries, government or important persons.
Film, Cinema and Television
Film censorship has been a part of the industry almost as long as it has been around to the control the presentation and content of a film. Films that are considered inappropriate or not in line with the rules can cause some of their scenes to be cut, mute, blurred or completely banned from entering cinema and television.
To give some examples, In Brazil, ‘A Serbian Film’ (2011) was forbidden due to the pedophilia scenes and child abuse that infringe the part of the Brazilian Constitution that protects children. In German, film censorship was abolished as early as 1918 to screen films that perpetrate a negative image of German to the rest of the world, while in New Zealand ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ (1980) was banned due to its extremely violent content and actual on-screen killings of animals. The highly praised film ‘District 9’ was banned in Nigeria in 2009 due to accusations of being xenophobic and racist towards Nigerians.
In my country, Malaysia, the government has tight control to what appears in cinema and television. Being a multi-racial, cultural and religious country, the Malaysian government needs to proactively address any sensitive issues regarding the matters. In 1994, ‘Pulp Fiction’ was banned due to intense violence, drug abuse, explicit nudity, and scenes of sexual violence. The same thing happened to ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ in 2013, even though one of the producers was a Malaysian. Some films were banned due to religious content and depictions of prophets like the ‘Noah’ in 2014. One of the latest was Disney’s ‘Beauty and The Beast’ film in 2017 that received a lot of scenes cut by Film Censorship Board due to homosexual references in the movie. Some other international films including local movies and tv series also received quite the same treatments but not to the extent of banning, but mostly resulted in some scenes being cut and censored.
When talking about television, most of the censorship and ratings are still applies since television is very accessible to the larger audiences regardless of age. But in terms of everyday contents, especially the news, are mostly controlled and in favor to the ruling government. The golden era of television is its curated contents which makes it easy for viewers to just sit back and watch what television serves without spending too much time searching for what to watch. It is also makes it easy for political influences to sneak into the creatively combined contents and segments.
Regarding the censorship, I think it is very important to preserve the cultural manners and harmony of the society. Yes, sometimes the film censorship may when overboard but most of the time it is necessary for a better developed future.
Games
When discussing about games censorship, it’s often associated with violent or sexual contents. While they are true, some games do not have to be outrageously offensive towards that matters to get censored or banned. I would like to discuss about one of the games from a popular franchise, Command & Conquer (C&C) by Electronic Arts (EA) and how some versions of the game was banned and modified.
The seventh installment of the series titled C&C: Generals (2003) let players take command of either the United States, China, or a decentralized terrorist called Global Liberation Army or GLA. The game was banned in mainland China, with even pirated copy of the game in shops being confiscated by authorities.
Throughout the Chinese campaign, the player is occasionally made to utilize heavy-handed tactics such as leveling the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre after it becomes a GLA base and destroying the Three Gorges Dam to release a flood on GLA forces. Chinese forces also liberally use nuclear weaponry in-game, albeit restricted to the lower tactical nuclear weapon yield range. Furthermore, in the introduction of the game, Tienanmen Square and its surrounding areas in Beijing is devastated by the GLA nuclear weapons.
I personally played the game when it was released, and I think 90% of the time I will play as China in the multiplayer games because I think they are very powerful and versatile. Regardless of that, I can understand why the game was banned because it has offense the country, government and the people of China.
In Germany, the story is a bit different where C&C: Generals has a different localised version of the game. Due to the then imminent war in Iraq, the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons removed the game off the market two months after the initial release, stating that the game would give underage people the ability to play the war in Iraq before the real war had even begun.
Later, in the same year, EA released a new version called ‘Command & Conquer: Generäle’, which did not incorporate real world factions or any relation to terrorism. The most notable changes are all the infantries were changed into ‘cyborgs’ in order of appearance and the terrorist unit was transformed into an automatic rolling bomb vehicle.
Advertising and Product Placement
Two interesting things discussed during this week class were advertising of cigarettes and product placement in film which are closely related to business, society and political issues.
In the past, cigarette advertisements were very common to see in newspaper, magazine and television. Tobacco Companies were quite excessive to spend their budgets on marketing such as a full-page advertisement in newspapers and sponsoring television shows to promote their products. I can still remember when I was a kid, watching any blockbuster movie in television will usually have a cigarette advertisement at the beginning and at every break because the show segment was sponsored by a tobacco company. But thankfully even after constantly being bribed with the ads to watch movies, I ended up not being a smoker to this day.
Nowadays however, we cannot see that kind of direct advertisements anymore as governments and health bodies around the world are fighting back with counter-advertising of facts generally information about health effects and the danger of addiction. Most forms of tobacco advertising and promotion were banned in any type of media. Despite the government constant attempts to raise public awareness about the dangers of smoking, there is no denying that the government is also making profits through the sales tax of cigarette.
Tobacco companies now use several other marketing techniques to promote their products such as indirectly place their products in films to increase exposure. Smoking in film continues to be a major source of tobacco imagery.
Which brings us to product placement in films.
Product placement or embedded marketing has been existed since a long time which usually conveyed indirectly in film to build brand awareness and boost sales. One of the films with excessive product placement is ‘Back to the Future’ (1985) with many references to brands like Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Nike and 7-Eleven.
‘Transformers’ (2007) on the other hand has obvious commercials for the Hasbro toy line. But the most striking thing in Transformers that may related to a political view was the change of Bumble Bee car model, from Germany’s Volkswagen Beetle to American made Chevy Camaro, sacrificing loyalty to the original source material in the process that displeased many fans.
Online Streaming
Streaming has become more popular nowadays as the internet is getting faster and cheaper. There are several types of streaming and two of them are the ‘on-demand’ content; like Spotify and Netflix where people pay and choose what they want to listen or watch from a huge cloud library, and the other type is a real-time content called ‘live streaming’ or ‘online broadcast’.
Regarding the ‘on-demand’ content, most of the rules that were previously discussed for film, tv and cinema are still applies here. The content providers are always bound to the local regulations and from this, the government is able to control the contents.
‘Live streaming’ on the other hand, in my opinion is one of the greatest evolution of media. Everyone can create their own content, broadcast it instantly to the world and interact with their audiences at the same time. Most of the streams are usually free but the content creator or called ‘streamer’ can make money from ads revenue, affiliate sales, donations from fans and sponsorships.
This is where politics and government would interfere since they do not have full control to the contents. Some countries will completely block the websites or services leaving the people not having the opportunity to make money from their own contents.
As another example, in July 2020 Malaysia has decreed that all producers and content creators must acquire a license to produce film or video in the country, including material intended for broadcast on traditional channels and social media platforms. Producers should inform the authority at least seven days prior to filming by submitting a form. The ruling will affect social media users and creators on platforms such as Youtube, Instagram and TikTok. The decision has been slammed and received a lot of criticism from the public. Fortunately, the law was not enforced in the end.