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Issue - entertainment and young consumers. Please evaluate.
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16 Mar 2011, 07:23
"Children today have an unprecedented number of options when it comes to entertainment. Since no parent can be aware of all of these options, it falls to the entertainment media to ensure that their content is suitable for young consumers."
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your point of view with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
Some people believe that it is the responsibliity of the entertainment media to ensure that their content is suitable for young consumers whereas others believe that entertainment media cannot take the sole responsibility. This appears a very controversial issue but closer examination reveals that even though entertainment media has a responsibility towards the society the primary responsibility for taking care of children rests with the parents. There are several reasons for this line of thought.
At the end of the day the entertainment media is a business and what gives them profit is what they are going to do. So it is unfair to expect them to restrict their content to what is suitable for young consumers. However they cannot deny their responsibility in ensuring that they appropriately rate their media content so that the viewers are well aware of the content. For instance, movies are rated based on the age group that can be allowed to watch it or whether parental guidance is required. Though this not a deterrent, it definitely helps to guide others in the right direction. Surely this alone cannot help control what the young consumers get to view but their responsibility ends at this point. The rest of the society especially the parents have to take over from here.
Obviously parents have better control over what their children get to watch than anyone else. They need to take responsibility for this by monitoring and controlling the media content their children get to watch. Movies are rated for their content and this gives the parents sufficient information to take necessary action. Additionally most of the satellite media providers help parents by allowing them to restrict the channels their children can view. The entertainment content is not limited to what you get to watch on television even video games fall into this group. Today there are so many video games that depict violence. These games are rated by the producers and hence they have sufficient information to help parents make the right decision. Therefore parents cannot shirk responsibility for what their children get to watch.
Finally, in addition to parents there are other players who can play their role in controlling the content that children have access to. For instance, shop keepers who sell video games and movies. They have to ensure that games and movies with explicit adult content is not sold to young consumers. If we expect the entertainment media to play their role in restricting access of media content to young consumers we need to expect a similar role to played by these shops and their employees. Being part of the society they cannot escape this responsibility. Just like parents they also have necessary data available in the form of ratings to help them with this task. Clearly they have to play their role.
To sum, even though there are arguments in favor of putting the entire responsibility on the entertainment media to ensure that their content is suitable for young consumers, as per the reasons mentioned above it is clear that this responsibility has to be shared by several players, especially the parents. Hence we can conclude that monitoring and controlling the media content accessible to youngsters is not the sole responsibility of the entertainment media. The society as such has a collective responsibility and no one entity can be entrusted with the entire task. Each person has to play their role to perfection.