Ethical, legal and contractual stuffs

Codes of practice,

Codes of practice are rules that workers in a workplace abide too keep up with the standards that you are expected to uphold by the company evolved. For example the BBC have a code of prectice which states that there is no extremely explicit material to be shown before 9.30pm. These codes are agreed between the BBC and the UKTV regulation authority.  These rules are put in place in order to protect the nation from harmful imagery even though at times the regulation authority may take it too far.  

policies, procedures,

All major decisions that are decided within a company are decided by following the policies and procedures. They are more than often kept as filed and documents within the office should anyone be unclear on the rules. for example the BBC The commissioning procedures state that they must look at all new BBC new program applications equially rather than accepting a popular idea. 

social concerns and expectations,

Racism, sexism and general prejudice are issues which are found in every workplace. Many workers are negatively effected by racism and similar discriminative behaviour.  Over the years many acts and regulations  have been established, such as the Race Relations Act of 1976 in order to irradiate all prejudice behaviour in a working environment. 

representation eg; individuals,  

This is how specific items and people are represented in the media an television industries. For instance cigarette advertising has been banned on mainstream UKTV since 1997 in order to protect the public from its dangerous harmful effects. Another main concern of studio executives which hasn't been banned is the advertising of alcoholic drinks. The UKTV regulation authority is very strict about what can be shown and what cant.  When the media decides to show a certain group of individuals eg (deferent races) there are very clear guidelines to follow to insure that those individuals are not represented in a way which they don't like.

religions,

The United Kingdom regulation authority is extremely careful how religious groups are portrayed in the media. UK television channels must stick to the rules and guidelines when a program or advert of theres regards religion in any way. For example When the archbishop of Canterbury speaks on the news or on national television what he says will be very strictly monitored to insure that he does not offend and members of other religions. When any religious figures are shown on Tv may steps and procedures are taken make sure that all thats said is in keeping with what members of other religions would call 
respectful.

Race Relations Act 1976 (and later amendments);

This was created by the parliament of the United Kingdom to help prevent discrimination on the grounds of races and ethnicities. Items covered under this act are races, ethnicities, and national origins in the context of employment, the provision of goods and services, education and public functions. The race relations act also helped establish the Commission of Race equality that allowed the view to review the legislation, that was created to make sure people were following the race relations act.

This act uses the previous race relations’ act from 1965 and the race relations’ act from 1968, then later being amended by the Race relations act of 2000. Thus creating a duty on public bodies and employees to promote race equality and demonstrate these procedures that aim to prevent race discrimination effective, further advertising the act preventing race discrimination.

This act has been recently replaced by the equality act as of 2010, thus consolidating previous laws against discrimination in the UK.

Broadcasting Act 1990 (and later amendments);

This broadcasting act is a law created by the British parliament, and is often said by critics and supporters as a quintessential example of Thatcherism.  The primary objective of this act was to rein form the complete structure of British broadcasting. That had recently been described by Margret Thatcher as the ‘Last bastion of restrictive practices. The act came about after the findings from the Peacock committee. This broadcasting act in television allowed the creation of a fifth analogue television channel in the UK, that is now known as channel 5, and acted as a catalyst for multichannel satellite television. As for its impact on radio is allowed the launch of three independent national radios stations and began planning the idea of community radio stations that were developed in the 2000’s.

Obscene Publications Act 1959 (and later amendments);

This act was a product of an act of parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament. Before this act was published the laws on creating obscure material was governed by the common law case created by R v Hicklin, of which had no intentions for artistic merit or public good. After several failed submissions of a new draft for the bill through parliament, a viable bill was finally introduced to parliament by on Roy Jenkins, and after being given the royal assent on July 29^th 1959, the obscene publications act came into play. This act created a new offence for publishing obscure material thus repealing the offence of obscene libel that had previously been used and also allowed the Justices of peace to issue warrants for the police to seize such materials.

At the same time this created two different defenses for the laws, the defense of innocent dissemination and the defense of public good. This act has come into play in several high profile cases, including the trials of penguin books for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Oz for the Schoolkids OZ issue.

British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)

The BBFC, or the British board of film Classification, also known originally as the British board of film censors is a non-governmental organization. Funded by the film industry and made responsible for the classification of films that have been produces and shown in the UK. Its main requirement is to classify videos, DVDs and to a smaller extent, video games s of the Video Recordings act of 2010. The company is financed from the fees it gains from charging films and videos and is a non-profit company.