“The censorship frame consists of mass media reports that proclaim the cultural association between music and collectively shared and culturally agreed upon perceptions of deviance” (Culture, Rap Music, ‘Bitch,” and the Development of the Censorship Frame 1). Arts and Humanities have been regulated by government through entities such as education systems, broadcasting stations and social domains to instill media into the minds of the people.
Music is subjected to critic based on language and conceptualization that leads to censoring by governing bodies that influence the mass media and popular culture. Censorship is infringing the rights of free speech in music lyrically and limiting artistic expression to spread thought provoking ideas to audiences. Regulating by use of legislature invokes control by the government to create allotted exposure to artists in the music industry to coincide with beliefs that are prone to the desires of politicians alike.
Censorship in music affects the listener, artist and the access to information that might otherwise be left untold because of fear of ridicule or exhibiting conflicting concepts to cultural accepted beliefs or motives instilled by politics. Government bodies regulating the dispersion of music based on ideologies or foul language negatively impact the music industry as a legitimate business and restrict free speech and artistic expression for audiophiles, scholars and artists accordingly.
Drawing the line between the meaning behind song lyrics is heavily read into to look for innuendos that portray suggestive lifestyles and acts of violence. Hilary Rosen who represents the Recording Industry Association of America insists the lyrics in the Rolling Stones song “Tumbling Dice” is about rape per lines such as “I get a kick out of you,” referring to cocaine in her interpretation of the lyrics (Unlike a Rolling Stone 3).
This nalysis testifies that Rolling Stones’ songs that are interpreted to allude to vulgar acts that are distasteful to the politicians and agents of regulated government affiliates can justify restricting marketing Rolling Stone’s music towards children by tagging albums with parental advisory labels. These warnings drop exposure and sales for the artists creating an even more limited market then before to create revenue and artistically express their craft. Punishing an artist for their music creates industry censorship and reflects the bias of interpretation by government affiliated entities.
Governments can regulate and establish their own social norms through culture modeling in political agendas aimed at gaining reputable credibility such as Rock the Vote for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992 or various local councils in Britain that prevent artists from performing at venues located in their district if the social conglomerate cannot relate or reject their hypothesis of the music exposed to them through the artists’ lyrics (Politics and Popular Music: From Policing to Packaging).
Intervention in the interests of listeners and artists’ expression that control the messages spread on a global scale is censorship of music and free speech by regulating lyrics that appeal to specific groups of listeners that either represent the standards of culture in society or advocate advancements in the gains of political figures. Government agencies exercise their power to control exposure of messages that relate to the actions of politics and global affairs to maintain social order and support the leaders of the country.
Censorship that occurred after the September 11th attacks in New York City to bands such as Rage Against the Machine and the Backstreet Boys had repercussions from artist messages that invoked unpatriotic ideologies and political corruption in the United States. Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine spoke about the incident stating “The loss of innocent life is just terrible….
The pain felt across the country demonstrates the lesson of Tuesday’s events: that the taking of innocent life is devastating to a society and terribly wrong,” (Imagine there’s no Unity 1). In response, the Clear Channel Communications broadcast station banned all songs from Rage Against the Machines from airplay and on September 14th the Secret Service for the United States closed their website for voicing opinions not approved by the governing body of the United States in a time of crisis (Imagine there’s no Unity 1-2).
Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys said “What has our government done to provoke this action that we don’t know about? ” to journalists after the incident and gave artists incentive to retract their political opinions in fear of being censored or restricted by governing entities in the music industry and agencies (Imagine there’s no Unity 2). Music is also regulated in public education institutions that further establish the socially accepted exposure of music deemed to be suitable for youth.
In Finland, music education is restricted to songs that are not popular in the mainstream of music and instead only consider songs that do not touch outside the social norm of culture, curriculum and religious affiliations that support unity and neutral grounding (Drawing a Line in Water: Constructing the School Censorship Frame in Popular Music Education 5-6).
The gray area produced by a school censorship frame is that interpretation of suitable music is proportional to the views of parents of students and the teachers that are on payroll by the state entity funding the education pursuit (Drawing a Line in Water: Constructing the School Censorship Frame in Popular Music Education).
The regulation of music and censorship that coincides is heavily relevant to the ideal foundation of the beliefs a government has over its cultural establishing influences such as broadcast and radio stations that are distributors of content to audiophiles and scholars on a local and global scale. Listeners’ interpretations are important to the development of censorship ideals that radio and broadcasting stations pay attention to for desired audience demographics.
Specifically, a study of the third-person effect, which is first stated that people believe content from music can have a marginally larger impact n others then themselves, is used to distinguish the interpretations in a study of college students on how rap lyrics are received amongst the ideal censorship frame set by government affiliated entities (Support for Censorship of Violent and Misogynic Rap Lyrics: An Analysis of the Third-Person Effect 1-2). After the sample group was surveyed, support for the thirdperson effect being that people believe content from music can impact others is to ensure others are protected, not just from exposure to others and themselves (Support for Censorship of Violent and Misogynic Rap Lyrics: An Analysis of the ThirdPerson Effect 16).
There is an idea by individuals in society, just as the government, to regulate the ideas spread through media, in this case music, of violent and vulgar lyrics that can potentially inspire or advocate listeners to pursue actions otherwise deemed troublesome. Subjective decisions that restrict the access to information whether it be informative or entertainment are the foundations of totalitarian society.
This trend demonstrates the conformity route of ideological norms instilled by the government for the “censorship frame” that correlates to social norms and contradiction of free speech rights in developed countries. Reconditioning and reinstated, the ideals of censorship are synonymous with the ideals behind government intervention, government affiliated entities and social order to discredit and disintegrate vulgar, violent or explicit music or media that conflicts with the ideologies of the mass conglomerate of a population or leading party.
Art is credible by artists’ freedom of expression and not being dismissed as “art for arts’ sake” in a world that has developed music through cultural identity and social demographics. Hindering artists’ perspectives in anyway is considered censorship as it deploys shady market practices for the mainstream distribution of music and critiques lyricism to apply to codes of lawful disposition in view of the governing body under the nation the artists reside in.