Mass media regulation
Mass media regulations or simply media regulations are a form of media policy with rules enforced by the jurisdiction of law. Guidelines for mass media use differ across the world. This regulation, via law, rules or procedures, can have various goals, for example intervention to protect a stated "public interest", or encouraging competition and an effective media market, or establishing common technical standards.
The principal targets of mass media regulation are the press, radio and television, but may also include film, recorded music, cable, satellite, storage and distribution technology, the internet, mobile phones etc. It includes the regulation of independent media.
Content regulation
The transmission of content and intellectual property have attracted attention and regulation from authorities worldwide, due to the memetic nature and possible social impact of content sharing. The regulation of content may take the form of selective censorship of works and content most often featuring obscenity, violence, or dissent, with wide variation through time and geographical situation concerning the bounds of legal content transmission. Content regulation also concerns the rules regarding transmission of the content itself. Regulations on content vary, and may come into conflict with each other more often in the context of global information exchange via the Internet.Restrictions that vary between jurisdictions exist that focus on ceasing the broadcasting of specific forms of content. This may include content that has a specific moral standard or "non-mainstream" viewpoints. About 48 countries have taken legislative or administrative steps to regulate technology companies and the content that goes along with them. The regulations work to temperate the societal issues that occur online, such as harassment and extremism, to protect people from fraudulent activity and exploitative business practices and protect human rights.
A decrease in freedom of expression and anonymity on the Internet has been denounced in recent years, as governments and corporations have expanded efforts to track, monitor, flag, and sell information regarding Internet activity of users through systems such as HTTP cookies and social media analytics. Some of the laws regarding content admissibility are designed to suppress content that is relative to the government and harmful content towards users. The use of artificial intelligence technology and algorithms is in use to flag and remove inappropriate content, with possible abuses and algorithmic bias. Over the years, content regulation has been put in place to protect and promote human rights and digital rights, such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation which sets limits on the information collected by Internet giants and corporations for sale and use in analytics.
Principal foundations
- Balance between positive and negative defined liberties.
- Balance between state and market.
Public service
Commercial mass media controlled by economic market forces are not always delivering a product that satisfies all needs. Children and minority interests are not always serviced well. Political news are often trivialized and reduced to tabloid journalism, slogans, sound bites, spin, horse race reporting, celebrity scandals, populism, and infotainment.This is regarded as a problem for the democratic process when the commercial news media fail to provide balanced and thorough coverage of political issues and debates.
Many countries in Europe and Japan have implemented publicly funded media with public service obligations in order to meet the needs that are not satisfied by free commercial media.
However, the public service media are under increasing pressure due to competition from commercial media,
as well as political pressure.
Other countries, including the US, have weak or non-existing public service media.
By country
Egypt
's regulation laws encompass media and journalism publishing. Any form of press release to the public that goes against the Egyptian Constitution can be subject to punishment by these laws. This law was put in place to regulate the circulation of misinformation online. Legal action can be taken on those who share false facts. Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulations will be authorised to place people with more than 5,000 followers on social media or with a personal blog or website under supervision. More than 500 websites have already been blocked in Egypt prior to the new law in 2018. Websites must go through Egypt's “Supreme Council for the Administration of the Media” to acquire a license to publish a website.Media regulation in Egypt has always been limited, but as in recent years, it has become even more limited. In 2018, a law was put in place to prevent the press and any media outlet from putting out content that violates the Egyptian Constitution, and/or contain any “violence, racism, hatred, or extremism.” If any content causes national security concerns or is broadcast as ‘false news’, the Egyptian Government will put a ban on those media outlets that produced that media. The law known as ‘The SCMR Law’, creates a media regulatory restriction plan that allows the government authorities to be able to block the content and those who want to be able to produce content, or be able to publish a website, have to obtain a license. In order to do that, those would need to go to Egypt's “Supreme Council for the Administration of the Media.”
China
At the early period of the modern history of China, the relationship between government and society was extremely unbalanced. Government held power over the Chinese people and controlled the media, making the media highly political.The economic reform decreased the governing function of media and created a tendency for mass media to stand for the society but not only authority. The previous unbalanced structure between powered government and weak society was loosed by the policy in some level, but not truly changed until the emergence of Internet. At first the regulator did not regard Internet as a category of mass media but a technique of business. Underestimating the power of the internet as a communications tool resulted in a lack of internet regulation. Since then, the internet has changed communication methods, media structure and overthrown the pattern of public voice expression in China.
Regulators have not and would not let the Internet out of control. In recent years, the strategy when approaching the Internet has been to regulate while developing.
The internet regulation in China generally formed by:
- Legislation
- Administration
- Technical control
- Agenda control
- Structure adjustment
- Training
European Union
The Digital Services Act governs the responsibilities of digital services that act as mediators between customers and goods, services, and content. This comprises, for example, internet marketplaces.
To reduce hate crime and speech, the 2008 Framework Decision deemed that it is illegal to encourage and spread any form of hatred based on a person's race, nationality, ethnicity, and religion. In addition, a Voluntary Code of Conduct was passed in 2016 to counter hate speech online.
European countries could also request a removal of content in other countries so long as they deemed it as a form of "terrorist" content
To control personal data of European citizens, the EU General Data Protection Regulation was passed on May 25, 2018
On April 23, 2022, the European Parliament and Council established a political agreement on the new rules.
Norway
The media systems in Scandinavian countries are twin-duopolistic with powerful public service broadcasting and periodic strong government intervention. Hallin and Mancini introduced the Norwegian media system as Democratic Corporatist. Newspapers started early and developed very well without state regulation until the 1960s. The rise of the advertising industry helped the most powerful newspapers grow increasingly, while the little publications were struggling at the bottom of the market. Because of the lack of diversity in the newspaper industry, the Norwegian Government took action, affecting the true freedom of speech. In 1969, Norwegian government started to provide press subsidies to small local newspapers. But this method was not able to solve the problem completely. In 1997, compelled by the concern of the media ownership concentration, Norwegian legislators passed the Media Ownership Act entrusting the Norwegian Media Authority the power to interfere the media cases when the press freedom and media plurality was threatened. The Act was amended in 2005 and 2006 and revised in 2013.The basic foundation of Norwegian regulation of the media sector is to ensure freedom of speech, structural pluralism, national language and culture and the protection of children from harmful media content. Relative regulatory incentives includes the Media Ownership Law, the Broadcasting Act, and the Editorial Independence Act. NOU 1988:36 stated that a fundamental premise of all Norwegian media regulation is that news media serves as an oppositional force to power. The condition for news media to achieve this role is the peaceful environment of diversity of editorial ownership and free speech. White Paper No.57 claimed that real content diversity can only be attained by a pluralistically owned and independent editorial media whose production is founded on the principles of journalistic professionalism. To ensure this diversity, Norwegian government regulates the framework conditions of the media and primarily focuses the regulation on pluralistic ownership.