- practice awa - "timed" and without any prior practice .

- practice awa - "timed" and without any prior practice .

analysis of an issue:

"in some countries, television and radio programs are carefully censored for offensive language and behaviour. in other countries, there is little or no censorship"

in your view, to what extent should goverment or any other group be able to censor television or radio programs? explain, giving relevant reasons and/or examples to support your position.

[30 mins]

The issue of censorship of televison and radio programs, which has aroused heated debates, has increased in significance in light of the technological boom facing us. the opinion that televison and radio programs should be censored, has some merit to it, but when juxtaposed against the option of eliminating censorship in totality or diminishing it, fades into insignificance. some of the salient reasons which tilt the balance against censorship are listed in four cogent arguments below.

freedom is the most essential right desired by man. in any form the lure of doing what one wants to do will always preside over the wishes of others. censorship curtails some of this desired freedom, albeit in an entertainment capacity. since time immemorial any sort of control has been rejected by humans, call it communisim or a centralized from of governance. history is testimony to the fact that man is happier in a democratic society. this could be abstracted to the issue facing us today, using the thought that history is a predictor of the future, it can enable us to realize that censorship indeed has a short life, and the quicker we brace ourselves to that fact the better prepared will we be.

secondly, the 21st century has increased the dominance of media and enabled it to appear in a variety of forms such as the ubiquitous internet. pleasure seekers being devoid of entertainment will proceed towards media where censorship does not prevail. hence slowely but surely reducing the "TRP'S" of televisional channels and paling them into insignificance. what censorship will do , is eject primitive forms of media such as television and radio into obsolete entities.

thirdly, control should not be excercised by the authorities but by the users themselves. televisons could have child locks and other advanced features which could enable households to decide for themselves what levels of obscenity or violence they would like to endure. however this would require television channels to declare their obscenity content in forms of ratings such as "PG", "A" et cetera.

fourthly, it could provide extra income to the goverment, by taxing channels whose obscenity ratings are higher than others, at a higher rate, thereby providing a discernible incentive to media houses to remain "clean". information about who is doing what is necessary, and big brother watching might not be that bad an idea after all . but where i would like to differ is when big brother starts interfering . hence no censorship would give goverment data about the media houses and their channels, enabling them to view cases on a case by case basis.

however the prospect of having censorship is not without any advantages as well. but in my humble opinion the advantages of removing censorship are far too many and important to ignore. some of the reasons and situations where a censorship might help society are when control is desired because excessive amounts of sex and violence in the media are becoming a precursor to crime or when the situaton become so much out of hand that order is desired. however apart from some specific instances the advantages of removing or diminishing censorship far outweigh censorship.