Report on Censorship

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Report on Censorship

        The aim of this report is to research the history and recent events of censorship. I shall look at examples and consider people’s opinions. I want to learn about how people dealt with censorship. I visited the local library and used the internet and my own knowledge to gain information about censorship.

WHAT IS CENSORSHIP?

Censorship is the act of suppressing publications, films, television programmes, plays, and letters that are considered to be obscene, blasphemous or politically unacceptable. A person with the authority to carry out this activity is called a censor. There are many forms of censorship: books can be banned or cut, newspapers can have articles withdrawn, and plays are not given licenses and therefore cannot be performed. In some countries, where people are punished for their religious or political beliefs, they are often subject to censorship and banned from speaking in public or publishing their writings. There are arguments for and against censorship.

‘The ultimate form of censorship is death’ George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, 1911

 

AN EXAMPLE OF CENSORSHIP (political)        

This example of censorship took place in South Africa. For most of the twentieth century South Africa was ruled by a white government, even though most of the population was black. For most of this time the white government operated a system called apartheid (apartness), in which black people were considered to be second class citizens and were not given the same rights as whites. Under a law passed in 1950 the government had the power to ‘ban’ people who expressed views opposed to apartheid. Under the banning order, the person in question could not be quoted in any way. Writers who disagreed with the government’s racist policies would not find a publisher in South Africa.

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CENSORSHIP IN WARTIME  

The British invented military censorship in 1856, after critical reports appeared in The Times about the war against Russia in the Crimea. This negative publicity helped to bring down the government of the day. At the beginning of the First World War, Britain, France and Russia were pitted against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The British government decided to control the news coverage by allowing only six correspondents to report from the Front.  

‘It’s humiliating to look back at what we wrote during the war. We were a propaganda arm for our government. At the ...

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