Censorship

Consider the merits and demerits of censorship. Why is censorship necessary/unnecessary?

Censorship has its good points, such as it 'shields' the people, especially the younger
children from gory and violent sights which may harm them in one way or another, such as in the forms of nightmare. It would be necessary as such frightful sights may traumatize even the adults, which would certainly affect the children even more. There are also censorship on explicit and adult materials, if the children are exposed to such stuff, they will be influenced by it and might become curious and start exploring more on their own. It also has the most influence on the children as they spend most of their time watching/listening to the media, mainly the television.

However, censorship has its downside too, blocking off so much content on the media prevents the people from knowing more of the world outside, which is important to them, particularly the younger generation when they continue their studies in junior college and other education institutes or when they step into the working environment. It is thus unnecessary as it encloses the people in a world of their own and hence not exposing them to the outside world and how it works. If they are faced with a crisis in reality, they might not be able to react to such situation calmly or effectively as they are not sure on the efficient way of handling the problem well.

On the whole, I feel that censorship is necessary to a certain level, only the most negative influential sights should only be censored so that the people would be able to widen their knowledge about the world and thus becoming more competent in solving their problems.

Singapore Swimmers in Hot Water

How does the media and its subjective perception affect the way this incident was handled?

The media’s subjective perception is that they treated it as if the Singaporean swimmers were laughing at the disqualification of the American swimmers. But the truth was that the Singaporean swimmers were just smiling in shock and was not at all mocking or laughing at the American swimmers. Neither did the reporters bother to interview the Singaporean swimmers and asked them what was their reason for smiling at the scoreboard, this has shown that the reporters was not at all interested in seeking the truth of the situation and was only interested of events which will improve their ratings. This caused the Singaporean swimmers to be accused of mocking at the American swimmers and the Singapore Swimming Association had to investigate the situation and find out the truth so as to prove the innocence of the Singaporean swimmers. This might also caused uneasy between the Singapore and American swimmers when they meet each other again.