CENSORSHIP: Media Law - Assignment Example

Censorship Censorship The term censorship in media is used to refer to the suppression of communication that takes place between themedia and its audience. In other words, censorship refers to the restrictions levied on media in order to stop them from communicating certain material to the general audience. Censorship has existed for several years throughout the world including United States. Censorship was used in order to restrict media from exhibiting hate speech that called for the audience to react or act in a negative manner.

For example during the period of 1940s the Supreme Court of the United States had banned media from using hate words that could result in violence (Hare, 2009, p.133). One form of censorship that has been criticized in the United States is known as prior restraint. The term prior restraint refers to the act of the government of trying to stop media from displaying content or providing information on events that have not yet occurred. But this form of censorship was regarded as an unconstitutional act in the case of Near vs.

Minnesota during the period of 1931 (Lidsky, 2004, p.25). Censorship has even been used by the government of United States in order to stop media from providing with confidential and war related information. For example: it was used by the government against the popular media outlet called New York Times when the organization tried to publicize highly secret information that was embedded in documents that were regarding as Pentagon Papers and these documents contained information regarding the Vietnam War (Overbeck, 2012, p.63). The government stated that the main reason for doing so was national security, but later New York Times was able to win the case against the government.

ReferencesHare, I., & Weinstein, J. (2009). Extreme speech and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Lidsky, L., & Wright, R. (2004). Freedom of the press. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.Overbeck, W., & Belmas, G. (2012). Major principles of media law. Australia ; United Kingdom: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.