Contemporary Media Regulation – Who should regulate?

Regulation as previously mentioned can be quite important to ensure that society is not affected by certain content. The question of who regulates is a different one, as we need to be able to trust the final judgement regulating a product. Who we trust can depend on a number of factors…

• Impartial decisions. We need everything to be treated relatively equally, as in we can’t have just one regulator who approves gender inequalities for example because it would be largely biased.
• It must be representative of society, so have a diversified culture. Race, age, gender and regional culture may have an impact on the ultimate decision for regulation; thus there needs to be a good variation to ensure it is the right one.
• There must be a democratic decision so that every regulator has their own say. Everyone should be listened to in an ideal situation and then the decision should be approved by the majority.
• Multiple voices are key. It would be extraordinarily rare to come across an individual with beliefs which absolutely everybody agrees with, whom we could rely on to make the right decision 100% of the time. Ultimately, by using multiple voices you are reducing the risk that regulation is done incorrectly, thus improving the system.
• Multiple viewings but with a note of initial impact to ensure messages are received as a proper audience would recieve them. Sometimes when watching a film over and over again, you may come across messages within it which you never did before. Therefore it is important regulators engage in the product thoroughly so messages are not simply missed. Initial impact is also important because some messages might be a lot more transparent in nature.
• The regulator should ideally be mature enough to make the right decisions, thus being an adult. This would ensure that the regulator is more experienced in the real world.
• Non-governmental regulators are quite important, because politicans are not the majority and are often completely different from the man on the clapham omnibus (or if you prefer, the average human being).