Is the Media in the UK Sexist and Racist Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Is the Media in the UK Sexist and Racist - Essay Example The X rating imposed by the BBFC was as a result of explicit sexual and violent content, according to Stuart McDougal (2003: 3) in his book, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Today, the censorship that resulted in an X rating for A Clockwork Orange, and prevented the film from being made available to the British public country-wide, is noticeably absent in the British media; as is the moral judgment and assertion of political interest that once prevailed in the UK’s media. The discernable sexism and racism that once defined the UK’s media were by design, according to David Buckingham, in a journal article published in the Journal of Communication (1998: 33). In his journal essay, Buckingham describes, â€Å". . . the history of media education in the UK, tracing its evolution Leavisite (Leavis and Twerepson 1933) origins, through the advent of cultural studies to the more explicitly political approaches developed in the 1970s. These approaches reflect a gradual democratization of the curriculum, as well as a form of cultural or political protectionism (1998: 33).† There has been, writes Buckingham, a noticeable and discernable move away from the aforementioned protectionism, resulting in a more open, less sexist, less racially discriminatory British media (1998: 33). The teaching of media in the UK, utilizing the Leavis and Thompson (1933) methods, was, according to Buckingham, focused on â€Å". . . salvation of the (British) culture – preserving the literary heritage, language, values, and health of the nation it was seen to embody and represent (1998: 34).† In their book, British Cultural Identities, authors Peter Childs and Mike Storry write, â€Å"The British are famed for both their prurience and their sexual reserve, a stereotype which, though exploited with many British cultural forms (Merchant/Ivory â€Å"heritage† cinema, for example), probably derives less from contemporary cultural attitudes than from England’s former role in the global imposition of repressive middle-class norms and values (2002: 128)†.