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The FCC was created to regulate what was shown on Television to protect Americans from obscene material, in other words, they wanted its viewers to be enriched by the programs they saw. Some kind of value must come from watching TV and that is still true of today. Many television stations are completely devoted to educational programming, providing unique resources for people to learn by.

It seems like the FCC has the public’s well being at mind, but many could argue that maybe their main goal is to not get complaints from certain people who find television’s content to be offensive. So maybe they are not trying to benefit the public has a whole as much as they are trying to make the smaller percentage of people who are disturbed by it happy. In the “censor or not” poll, 44 percent of the people who took the poll think that the FCC should only be able to “lightly” regulate television. This proves that majority of the people who watch television feel comfortable with what they see on a daily basis.

The fact that the FCC itself has changed itself over the years (a woman commissioner making sure more women programs were shown on television, and the fact that in the 1950’s the president elected the committee, probably of the same ideology would reflect itself in television) means it is going to keep changing. Regulations should be updated constantly with the changing world. As shown in the narrative film assignment, what shocked people back in the infancy of motion pictures barely affect them now. So, the same things that were considered “taboo” back in the FCC’s infancy are not considered as harmful now. Those on the FCC committee should be very educated in what people overall think is obscene, and should take tests on pop culture of the given time period.

People over all don’t tend to be big fans of censorship. But the FCC is necessary, as the poll about political biases suggests, people are quite concerned with news programs showing equality to all ideologies. This would be hard to do without a government regulation service. Also, rather surprisingly, an overwhelming amount of people, although they don’t want television to be super regulated, do think that television today pushes the envelope too far sometimes. The FCC can effectively ensure that it won’t cross over boundaries of uncomfortable ness.

The new ratings that Television shows must show up in the corner up the program, alert parents to the type of show their kids are viewing, without using censorship. It takes the responsibility away from the government some, and gives it to the parents. The ratings are easy to follow, and shows with “mature” ratings often have disclaimers before shows begin saying that the show they are getting ready to view is not intended for children under 17, or something along those lines. Ideas like this place regulation and control of what is seen back to the people, they know what they are getting themselves into at the beginning of a program, and it is up to them to decide if it is suitable to their own moral standards.