Last Tuesday Ofcom published it’s first public consultation over media literacy: “In an increasingly converged communications world, people face greater media choice. Changes in technology mean that parents may have to take more responsibility for what they and their children see and hear on screen and online.” It sounds like Ofcom may intend to put the responsibility over viewing back where it belongs, with citizens and consumers.

But they are also considering a variety of content labelling ideas. “Viewers and listeners need to have clear, accurate and timely information about the nature of content so that they can make informed choices. Our prime concern is to ensure consistency in the presentation of information related to possible harm and offence, in particular to help protect young and vulnerable people from inappropriate material. This advice can be effectively delivered using a content labelling framework. Ofcom will work with industry players to explore the possibility of creating a common content labelling (information) scheme for electronic audiovisual material.”

For television it would be beneficial if there was some form of classification to provide people with more information about what they were about to watch, but there are also dangers. There is a real risk that any labelling scheme might be harmful to broadcasting freedom. A clear example of what can happen can be seen in the case of video. All UK Video is clearly and consistently labelled, which is a good thing, but it is also vetted by the BBFC prior to distribution. The distributors often make substantial cuts to films to achieve the classification that they want and the BBFC themselves occasionally demand further cuts beyond that. In addition the classification system itself imposes a significant cost overhead which effectively prevents any very small scale video business operating in the UK as classification is a legal requirement on all video sold to the public. So although there are benefits to labelling there are also costs and dangers.

Reading Ofcom’s consultation document left me with the distinct impression that they intend to extend their regulatory remit to include or at least involve the internet (where they have no legal regulatory powers). As with television it would be useful if all websites were accurately, consistently and effortlessly labelled with an age classification. Unfortunately due to the nature of the internet this will never happen as there are too many websites, too many different ideas of acceptability and too many different countries. There is no hope of having any form of consistent labelling when people can and do surf on sites in different countries at the click of a mouse and content onsite changes daily. There is a very real risk of imposing a standard that will bring little benefit, but will simply create barriers to communications.

As a final note on media literacy, all UK libraries restrict access to the internet for both children and adults. This does not simply apply to pornographic websites but involves restriction of a variety of different types of content for a variety of different reasons. The things restricted and the reasons for doing so are not readily accessible to the public and many people may be unaware or only vaguely aware how this effects the results of searches. Media literacy is also about being aware of such facts.

Why not take part in Ofcom’s media literacy consultation here:
Media literacy consultation