Does the FCC have to much regulatory power?
FCC was created in order to ensure that no media monopoly is created and so that broadcasting stations don't damage community standards.
Yes
Side Score: 5
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No
Side Score: 5
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They don't censor anything political or what not. Plus, there is a captive audience when it comes to the radio and TV...meaning that since the airwaves are limited choice is extremely limited and you just can't choose to not see something. Besides obscenity is not protected by the 1st amendment. Miller v California sets community standards as the method of determining obscenity... that means it is up to the community determine what is okay and what is not Side: No
I am well aware that obscenity is not protected under the 1St Amendment due to the court ruling, but I have an issue with any law that has a ruling based on a judgment that requires subjective opinion. The test that the FCC uses, the Miller Test, is this: 1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, 2.Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law, 3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. (This is also known as the (S)LAPS test- [Serious] Literary, Artistic, Political, Scientific.) The work is considered obscene only if all three conditions are satisfied. Requirement number three is the one I have the biggest issue with. To say something is artistic is completely subjective. The same could be said for political. There are cases where it is clearly a political issue, but what about times where symbolism or allegory are being used? For example, if a person were to run an ad displaying people dying in a hospital to demonstrate that we need health care reform would that fall under political? I would say yes, but someone else might disagree and we would run into an issue over which side is right. Side: yes
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FCC restricts freedom of speech, and thereby hold to much regulatory power. "There ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered." John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. However, Mill introduced the harm principle, which in case, very few restrictions on free expression in times are allowed to prevent harm to others. Side: yes
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broadcast media is different than print media because there is only a limited number of frequencies available to broadcast on; this means that there is a captive audience of people. The airwaves, as their called, are public public and should be treated as such making them open to regulation by the government-- not to quell media dissent, but, instead, to quell obscenity. Side: No
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