Ethical

& Legal Constraints

Video Recording Act

Video Recorders were brought into the UK in 1978. Back then when film was still being developed.
Any video could have been released even if it was inappropriate. This was because at that time there
was no legalisation on what can be released on video. Here is a
child victim to be given court video protection. The reason for
doing this because he has the human rights to not be on video
tape. The BBC news have showed the on their news channel. BBC
news and all other news channels must also abide by the rules that
if someone does want to be on tape they can not release the video
publically. If the video is released shown publically and someone in
the video does not want to be seen in it, they can go to court and
press charge the person who owns the video. BBC put this on their
news channel so they can show people that this is one of their
rights, to not be seen on video tape without permission.

Copy Right Law

Copyright is very important in the television industry this is because it gives the people in
the television industries control on how they are used and distributed. So no one can give a
copy of any type of video to a friend, making a copy then selling it, or renting the the video
with the out permission. The law that governs the copyright in the UK is called the
copyright, Designs and patents Act 1988. The purpose for the having the copyright law is the
no one except the owners of the video can sell the video. BBC also has copyrights towards
all of television channels. The copyright law protects all of someones or a large companys
videos so that they are not sold off or rented
with no permission. An example of copyright
would be somebody posting a video on
Facebook or any source of social media with out
the permission of the owner of the video. If the
copyright law is broken the author of the video
or picture will send an email or a letter asking
them to remove or the material from where
ever the video may be. BBC news will also do the
same if they had someone copyrighting the
television. Only the owner of the video can
decide how serious they are going to take
copyrighting his/her video. A court in Sweden where four men were jailed for being behind
the Pirate Bay. Pirate Bay is the most-high profile file sharing website in a landmark case.
The was shown on the BBC news channel.

The films Act?

The cinematograph Films Act which was in taken place in 1927, the
films act was an act of the United Kingdom parliament and it was
created to Stimulate the declining British Film industry. It took five
months after the proposal was done for it to become into force.
For the films act to apply it must be in the UK or a UK company.
The reason for making the films Act law was to increase the
economic activity in that production sector because they believed
that it had a large profit margin which is why created the films Act law. Eventually after a
long period after making the film Act law the the film industry eventually lead to the growth
of a self-sustaining industry. For the television sector it would
still apply even though television does not have any film with
in it. But the law still applies, since the law applies for
television as well it means that the government are making
more money out of it. The government are very intelligent for
applying this law from nearly up to a century because it has
benefitted them greatly.


Official Secrets Act

The official Secrets Acts is a term used in The United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Malaysia,
Ireland, it is coming into Canada and New Zealand which is for
legalisation that keeps protection for states secrets and official
information, a lot f this is mainly related to national security.
There are different countries that have made the own Official
Secrets law, such as the United Kingdom made their The
Official Secrets Act 1889. About half a century later New
Zealand, Ireland and Jersey decided to join The United
Kingdom by making their own Official Secrets Act themselves.
This is because the importance of the Official Secrets Act is very key
for the national security for a state or a country. Without the Official
Secrets Act the world would be in chaos because there would be no
privacy between countries, also important information within
countries and states may be released, information such a nuclear
launch codes. People that are working with very important and
sensitive information are required to sign a statement which abides by
all of the restrictions that are included within The Official Secrets Act.
The main objective of the Official Secrets Act is maintaining the
security of the state against any leakage of information and sabotage.

Obscene Publications Act

In 1959 the Obscene Publications Act was put into order, it is an act of parliament which has
reformed the law related to obscenity within Wales and England. The reason for having the
Obscene Publications Act is to prevent criminal acts to corrupts. The law on
publishing obscene materials was governed by the common law case of R v
Hicklin, which had no exceptions for artistic merit or the public good. In the
1950s there was a society of authors whom created a committee to
recommend reform of the existing law, they did this because they wanted
to change the way the law is done. Then in February 1955 they submitted a
draft bill to the Home office. There were several failed
attempts to push a bill in parliament, finally a
committee succeeded in creating a viable bill. This bill
was introduced to parliament Roy Jenkins and it was
given the Royal Assent on 29th July 1959, and it ended
up coming into force on 29th August 1959. The actual
reform of the law was limited, with several extensions
to police powers and this was included in the final
version.

Race Relations Act

The Race Regulations act was in 1965 was the first legalisation n the United Kingdom that
addressed racial discrimination. This act outlawed discrimination towards skin colour, race,
ethnic of national origins in public places. A year after the Race Relations Act was published
by parliament, a board was made called the Race Regulations Board, the reason for this
board is so they can consider complaints under the Act. This act has made it a civil offense
to not serve serve a person, to serve someone with
unreasonable display, or to overcharge. It is all done on
the grounds of colour, ethnic, race or national origins. A
17-year-old in October 1967 who was a member of the
National Socialist Society was convicted under the Race
relations act and was found guilty for racial
discrimination.


Human Rights Act

The Human Rights Act is a law in the UK that was passed in 1998. The consists that you can
defend your rights in the UK courts, and that all public organisations must treat everyone
differently. They must be treated with honesty, respect, dignity and fairness. This Act
applies to all public bodies within the United Kingdom.
Which all includes local authorities, central government
and bodies exercising public functions. But it does not
include parliament when it is acting in its legislative
capacities. By the acts own terms it only applies to public
bodies.

Importance of ethical issues

The importance of the ethical issues with the television sector is that they there must be
trust, impartiality, truth, privacy and mainly serving the publics interest. The BBC have
policies and procedures this is how the BBC ensure ethical
procedures. The BBC have a trust charter which sets out
the purpose and inner workings of the British Broadcasting
corporation. The charter that BBC have shown is that the
BBC exists to serve the public interests; this phrase is the
BBCs prime moral principle. Also the BBC has editorial
guidelines which tell its producers the principles and the
practices of acting ethically in much detail. The editorial
guidelines are set out how producers should deal with their issues such as accuracy, privacy,
impartiality etc.


Representation of gender

Gender is your sex, so whether you are male or female, gender is not biological but it does
refer to a socially constructed way of behaviour patterns.
Femininity and masculinity are culturally determined and the
matter of choice. Each sex refers to a pattern of behaviour
that we normally associate with depending with they are
male or female. The gender identity whether they are male
or female Is very obvious you can tell from the body
characteristics. The representation of the gender is shown
from their femininity or masculinity inside that they can be
competitive, rational, ruthless, aggressive and professional all
of these can define and represent what kind of gender someone is. Although the femininity
within the media sector is interesting because women have always had to suffer from a
father narrow set of representation in the media. On media women are represented as an
entertainment for males. An example where women are used for washing machines and
cleaning products reflects onto society because women are stereotypically meant to stay at
home all day and do the washing. Also here on the right is a chart showing the percentage
of each gender for print journalists from January November 2012.

Representation of Religious beliefs

In the media, religious communicating has a representation problem. The reason for this is
because their ways and techniques are not as developed as the countries such at America
and Europe, such as in some religions they wont the
advanced equipment, also broadcasting would be a problem
for them. Also some of their religions may not have any source
of communication meaning television to watch the news or
other channels. In the media there is representations of
religious beliefs shown on BBC about Syria on the bombing
going on around the during 2015. All the religious beliefs are
shown on the news so they can show they are being fair. Doing
this also informs other people who may be of the same
religion.

Representation of Gender

Men and women in the media industry should be represented equally amongst each other.
But men and women are represented in this way, men are more dominant because that is
they society has been built. The ways of men being more dominant is having men having a
higher up job in the media industry. As you can tell already there is a much greater quantity
of men to women working in the industry. An example of
this would be the members of parliament showing that
there is a hardly anyone that is a female. But the BBC do
not believe in this they believe men and women have
equal rights and they should be treated the same. This is
why on the BBC news there is a man and a woman showing
the news, or if the news is being shown there will be a man or a woman it will change on a
rotor. In the picture above it shows the morning news presenters, as you can see there is n
equal amount of males to females and these news presenters are all from the BBC. This
shows that the BBC represent men and women as equals in society.

Codes of Practice

The sector that I have chosen is the television and going into the news channels part as well.
The BBC very clearly represent people fairly as described in the previous paragraph. The
reason for BBC making it fair for men and women to work at the same level, is because it
will help change the society of believing the men should be going out and working whilst
women stay at home at clean. Although in some parts of the television women are not
shown is fairly as possible, such as the washing powders advert which only star women
which is very stereotypical.