Every civilized society needs to have some rules and guidelines for how to define what is publicly acceptable. There have to be moral guidelines; if there were not rules there would be chaos. For instance, you can’t yell, “bomb” on an airplane and you can’t yell, “fire” in a crowded movie theater, there are certain unspoken laws of society that are necessary. When you turn to entertainment such as TV and radio there are also unspoken rules about what is appropriate to say/watch.

Censorship is the practice of examining books, TV shows, movies etc, and suppressing unacceptable parts. The hardest part is determining what needs to be censored. A line has to be drawn somewhere and it can be difficult for some to distinguish what infringes on our first amendment freedom and what does not.

According to www.cato.org, more than 85 percent of households in America subscribe to either cable or satellite televison services.

“I think radio and TV censorship is necessary because swearing on TV and stuff isn’t appropriate for all viewers and parents shouldn’t have to worry about their kids hearing inappropriate things on the TV and radio,” said junior Jake Mclean.

Television, radio and newspaper can be a very influential form of communications and they can do wonders in molding a community. If these forms of communication are misused, we could be doing a considerable disservice to not only our future generation but to everyone we expect to excel in today’s world.

“Since so many people watch and listen to TV and radio, I think that what they hear and see shouldn’t be inappropriate and therefore probably needs to be censored. I guess it would be hard to figure out what should be censored and what shouldn’t be. I guess swearing shouldn’t be on TV and if something has a lot of sexual content they should just make sure that viewers who are under a certain age are being supervised to make sure their parents know what they are watching,” said senior Jane Vezina.

The way TV and radio are censored today are effective enough that they do not need to be altered very much. With parental controls on televisions, there are not anymore necessary steps that censor teams can take. After all shows are censored it is up to the people to decide if they want to watch the show or not.

“My parents have parental controls on our TV for my two little brothers and they never watch anything that my parents think is inappropriate for them, but I can watch whatever I want and so can my parents. I think instead of arguing that TV needs to be censored more, people should open their minds to using parental controls and if they don’t have young people in their house then they should just not watch TV that they don’t like/think is appropriate,” said sophomore Olivia Arkell.

Most TVS are capable of putting parental controls on certain channels. There are even apps for parents to make sure what their children are watching is suitable for them.

It’s not the government’s job to tell the public what they can and cannot watch, but it is the government’s job to keep order and take care of the people, therefore, censorship should only be censored enough so that it is acceptable for all audiences to watch and if it is not appropriate all audiences should know beforehand that it isn’t.