Broadcasting

This section concerns radio and television broadcasting, since film is covered under the headings of cinema and Hollywood. Both media have in the course of their development tested the parameters of what is considered “decent” or “unacceptable” in the realm of broadcast language. However, the basic understandings, assumptions, and constitutional rights concerning broadcasting differ considerably between the United Kingdom and the United States and accordingly are treated separately in this entry. Radio has special features, coming directly into the home, where privacy and “family values” are paramount, where children have unsupervised access to the medium and often without advance warning of its content. Furthermore, stations have very different audiences and target markets, which a listener may traverse simply by turning a dial.

The nature of radio has changed in both content and range. Initially British radio was essentially institutional, confined to the B.B.C. (the British Broadcasting Corporation, founded 1922 and a monopoly until 1973). The corporation saw its role as essentially institutional, educational, and enlightening, as well as conveying the core values of the nation. In the United States this role was assumed by the V.O.A. (the Voice of America, founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda in Germany). American radio was essentially competitive from the outset, so that to prevent a monopoly Congress passed the Radio Act of 1927, setting up the Federal Communications Commission. However, with the advent of independent and therefore competitive radio stations, entertainment became a major priority, with increasing appeal to the lowest common denominator. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of “talk radio” stations, some frankly exploiting the shock value of strong language, with corresponding increase in the number of complaints. The B.B.C. and the British Broadcasting Standards Council currently receive more complaints about bad language than about violence and other forms of offensive behavior. When I was interviewed by the B.B.C. about my book Swearing (1991), it was spelled out before the broadcast started that “the four-letter words” could not be used. Fiona Pitt-Kethley’s poem “Censorship” deals with the topic ironically:

The BBC does not like certain words.
Dildoes and buggery are always out.
“Cocks are OK, as long as they’re not sucked”—
         a young researcher telephoned me back.
                  (in Ricks and Michaels 1990, 422-23)

Although religious sensitivities have generally hardened, the television broadcast by the B.B.C. of “Jerry Springer—The Opera” in January 2005 provoked a major demonstration of public outrage, with threats of lawsuits for blasphemy, since the production included a swearing tirade between Jesus and the Devil, journalists calculating that in all there were 3,168 “f” words and 297 “c” words.

The issue of broadcasting standards in the United States is problematized by the protection of freedom of speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Accordingly, under the Communications Act (Section 326) it is stated that:

Nothing in this Act shall be understood or construed to give the power of censorship over the radio communications or signals transmitted by any radio station, and no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the Commission which shall interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communications.

However, under section 1464 of the same Act it is determined that:

Whoever utters any obscene, indecent or profane language by means of radio communication shall be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

A Report on the Broadcast of Violent, Indecent, and Obscene Material to the Federal Communications Commission in 1975 addressed “specific positive action taken and planned by the Commission to protect children from excessive programming of violence and obscenity” (1). The Report noted that complaints about violent or sexually oriented programs rose from over 2,000 in 1972 to nearly 25,000 in 1974. The NAB and the three major television networks established a programming schedule whereby the “Family Viewing” period would extend from 7.00 P.M. to 9.00 P.M.

The report continues: “The Congress has authorized the Commission to enforce … Section 1464 which prohibits utterance of ‘any obscene, indecent or profane language by means of radio communication’” (7). Recognizing that the “problem of ‘indecent’ language” and its definition has persisted, the report puts forward another definition:

The new definition of “indecent” is tied to the use of language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for broadcast media, sexual and excretory activities and organs, at times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. (8)

These remarks can be placed in context alongside those of the comedian Milton Berle, who inaugurated “Texaco Star Theatre” in 1948. Berle recalls that “We had tremendous censorship in those days. You couldn’t say ‘hell’ or ‘damn.’” (Wheen, 1985, 212).

In Britain initiatives to control the content and language of broadcasting derived from various quarters, including the Clean Up TV campaign started in 1965 by Mrs. Mary Whitehouse. In 1991 the Broadcasting Standards Council in the United Kingdom issued a report under the title of A Matter of Manners? The Limits of Broadcasting Language . The Introduction asked the question: “Why, in the face of such sustained criticism of bad language, does it continue to appear, without apparent justification, in a multitude of programs providing, therefore, a potential source of offense to large numbers of people” (1991, 1). The Council set up a panel of carefully selected respondents from the broadcasting audience and monitored their responses to a variety of programs, extracts, and lists of words. The resulting findings formed the basis of the Council’s report.

A curious finding of the report was that more than 15 percent of the respondents did not know the words motherfucker, cocksucker , and tosser , presumably because the first two terms are predominantly American in usage. In this provenance, the most offensive were the taboo words fuck and cunt , with nigger , the only racial epithet in the list, being rated fifth. Notably, over half the panel regarded the traditional religious oaths such as blast, damn, hell , and God as “not at all” strong or offensive.

A demographic analysis within the panel showed that generally women and older people rated bad language as more offensive than men and younger people. However, young people were more sensitive to racist epithets. The panel were given a list of eighteen racist epithets, of which the four most unacceptable were those referring to persons of African or Asian descent, namely nigger, wog, coon , and paki , broadly speaking those who are called “the new Britons.” The “middle range” were those referring to Continental and Asian people, namely dago, chink, nip, kraut, frog, jap , and honky , the one term referring to white people. The least unacceptable terms were those referring to other nationals in the British Isles, those from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, namely taffy, jock, mick , and paddy (1991, 17). This indicates a direct relationship between the extent to which a person is considered an outsider and the strength of the epithet applied to them.

A separate test showed sharp discrimination between derogatory terms for women, homosexuals, and those suffering from disability and limited intelligence. Of the ten terms used, by far the least acceptable were spastic and cripple , followed in increasing order by the terms for homosexuals, namely dyke, queer, poof , and nancy boy . Of the two terms for women, slag (a relatively new British term for a promiscuous woman) was third on the list, but bitch was second to last. The high rating of unacceptability accorded spastic and cripple shows a new sensitivity to disability, possibly related to the growth of political correctness. Both terms are now increasingly replaced by cerebral palsy and disabled .

The report did not offer specific recommendations, but also contained the views of various scriptwriters and professionals in the field of television production. These research-based insights into audience responses to various categories of offensive language are valuable. A familiar witness word for censoring obscenity is bleep , originally an echoic term for a radio signal, but from about 1966 meaning to delete an offensive word from a broadcast, generating bleeping , used as an intensifier from about 1970.