The creation of a need to censor

Abstract

The central aim of this thesis is to analyse the way in which specific social members' interaction can accomplish an objective social belief in the need to censor or restrict certain specific litera1y, film, or music genres as a necessary and vital undertaking in order to safeguard the whole of society or some specific social group within it. As its central premise, the thesis uses the argument put forth by Mill ( 1993) that the only time a State is justified in limiting or restricting the civil or social liberty of an individual is if the specific action or attitude leads to the harm of another member of society. This argument serves as a central dynamic in all censorship or restrictive discourse pertaining to identified deviant or immoral ente1tainment genres; and it is essentially the establishment of this argument that ultimately forms the basis for a genre to be legislated against. Thus the thesis is concerned with how this dynamic is formulated in regards to specific entertainment genres and is consequently accepted as an objective reality within a specific society during a particular historical period.
ln order to undertake this pre1mse, the dynamic is firstly discussed in a social historical context, addressing the way it has been both introduced and used as a means to censor or restrict specific literary, film, and music genres at various
historical instances. From there, the thesis examines the validity of the essence of this dynamic, by firstly examining the belief that social factors existing within a society are able to influence individual human behaviour, specifically causing them to undertake deviant action, and secondly, whether identified immoral genres possess the ability to cause immorality in specific individuals. From this juncture, it then becomes necessary to analyse the way in which the dynamic that dictates a specific entertainment genre is deviant to the exclusion of others is accomplished, and how this accomplishment creates an objective reality within society concerning that particular genre's inherent dangers. Finally, it discusses the way in which the accomplishment of this objective understanding that a need to censor or restrict must be undertaken forces specific individuals or social groups to act in a way that is concurrent with the particular machinations of the accomplished dynamic as proposed by Mill.

Date of Award	Dec 2007
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Wales, Bangor
Supervisor	Stephen Hester (Supervisor)