Censorship

In this media-intensive stage, where we are bombarded with newspapers, magazines, television and radio programmes, the issue of censorship inevitably comes into play. Censorship has always been considered a dirty word, deriving from Latin for “censor taking” or “tax collector.” In the legal sense, censorship is the governmental suppression of speech. In a broader sense, it refers to private institutions or individuals doing the same thing; suppressing content they find undesirable. Censorship has been practiced by governments and the press since the beginning of time. Yet, is censorship ever justified? Self-censorship is the act of censoring or repressing one’s own work out of fear, deference or sensibilities of others, without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority. Self-censorship is often practiced by media, journalists, politicians and authors.

Self-censorship operates more subtly than censorship, often disguised as personal opinion or moral imperative, but no matter how it may be camouflaged the result however remains the same: the range of what we can say, hear, think and even imagine is narrowed . Of the many debates about self-censorship in recent years, not one has opened with a public official saying, “This material is censored.” On the contrary, the standard initial talking point is “This is not censored, we do not self-censor, nor censor,” followed by “We need to protect children who might see this”; “We can’t spend taxpayers’ money to support work that might offend.” Self-censorship’s current disguise of choice are “protecting children” and exercising “respect for religious and cultural beliefs and sensitivities,” both of these creditable objectives, and for this reason, perfect disguises...

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...en greater number restrain their journalistic instincts and write what they think their political superiors would prefer to read . Because of the circumstances of real threat that exists it is easy to understand why free expression is insufficiently exercised in some parts of the world. Self-censorship is rooted in the ‘constraints of conformity’. These constraints are defined by the International Press Institute as ‘fear of going against the grain of social expectations’ . Almost everyone censors their work to some extent, at the personal level this is described as ‘tact’. When the constraints of conformity affect communication beyond the domain of the personal they become a means by which self-censorship is subtlety extended and strengthened. In most people there is a natural desire not to attract unfavourable comments and possibly social isolation that can follow