Mediaboss Marketing

Chinese censors should pay more attention to public opinion, a state-run newspaper argues, after an online backlash over the removal of all cleavage from a TV show about China's only female emperor

TOO MUCH CLEAVAGE? Fan Bingbing as Wu Zetian in the TV show 'The Empress of China.' Image via Sina Weibo

BEIJING, China Chinese censors should pay more attention to public opinion, a state-run newspaper argued Wednesday, January 7, after an online backlash over the removal of all cleavage from a TV show about China's only female emperor.

Empress of China, about the Tang dynasty ruler Wu Zetian, who came to power at the end of the 7th century, was abruptly taken off the air soon after its debut on satellite station Hunan TV late last month, ostensibly for "technical reasons".

When it returned a week later, the show which stars actress Fan Bingbing in the title role had been conspicuously edited so that shots of female characters in mildly revealing period dresses were instead tightly cropped to remove any sight of the bulge of a breast.

The move ignited the fury of China's Internet users, who contended that censors had gone a step too far and had sought to rewrite the country's fashion history.

The Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Communist Party, noted in an editorial that while the censorship was "largely done out of moral concerns", the resulting public outcry should serve as a warning for the future.

"While it is powerful, censorship lacks authority," it said. "In this sense, when using censorship, more considerations should be given to public opinion to garner support and avoid similar incidents."

The rules governing censorship in China are opaque and reasons are not provided for why cuts are made, but negative portrayals of contemporary politics are often banned, as are revealing scenes and issues that authorities believe could lead to social unrest.

The Global Times insisted that the system of control was necessary. "The reality is that censorship exists in many countries and it is unlikely to be reversed in China," it wrote.

Read this article:
'Empress of China' cleavage censorship 'lacks authority' state media

(01-07 12:07)

Chinese censors should pay more attention to public opinion, a state-run newspaper argued Wednesday, after an online backlash over the removal of all cleavage from a TV show about China's only female emperor. "Empress of China'', about the Tang dynasty ruler Wu Zetian, who came to power at the end of the 7th century, was abruptly taken off the air soon after its debut on satellite station Hunan TV late last month, ostensibly for ''technical reasons''. When it returned a week later, the show -- which stars actress Fan Bingbing in the title role -- had been conspicuously edited so that shots of female characters in mildly revealing period dresses were instead tightly cropped to remove any sight of the bulge of a breast. The move ignited the fury of China's Internet users, who contended that censors had gone a step too far and had sought to rewrite the country's fashion history. The Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Communist Party, noted in an editorial that while the censorship was "largely done out of moral concerns'', the resulting public outcry should serve as a warning for the future. "While it is powerful, censorship lacks authority,'' it said. "In this sense, when using censorship, more considerations should be given to public opinion to garner support and avoid similar incidents.'' The rules governing censorship in China are opaque and reasons are not provided for why cuts are made, but negative portrayals of contemporary politics are often banned, as are revealing scenes and issues that authorities believe could lead to social unrest. The Global Times insisted that the system of control was necessary. "The reality is that censorship exists in many countries and it is unlikely to be reversed in China,'' it wrote. The strict approval process has been criticized as arbitrary at times, with films and TV series often scuttled at the last moment -- and sometimes, as in the case of "Empress of China'', even after they have begun airing. Last month, the premiere of acclaimed director Jiang Wen's latest film, ''Gone with the Bullets'', was abruptly delayed due to eleventh-hour demands by censors. An online survey released by the Sina Weibo microblogging service on Monday found that nearly 95 percent of respondents disapproved of the "Empress of China'' censorship. According to the culture ministry website chinaculture.org, Tang dynasty women inherited the traditional Chinese "ruqun'' jacket and gown combination ''and developed it further, opening up the collar as far as exposing the cleavage between the breasts''. "This was unheard of and unimaginable in the previous dynasties, in which women had to cover their entire body according to the Confucian classics,'' it says. "But the new style was soon embraced by the open-minded aristocratic women of the Tang Dynasty.'' --AFP

Read the original:
Cleavage censorship 'lacks authority': state media

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Unnecessary Censorship #2
Here #39;s the second in a series of videos I really enjoyed making! Hope you enjoy, and if you do please leave a thumbs up so I can keep this series going! Missed the first episode? Check it...

By: Zodical Candy

Visit link:
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Unnecessary Censorship #2 - Video

How Censorship Fails US...
Donations are greatly appreciated and help me survive to make videos: Paypal https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick hosted_button_id=DAUQG2GQSNQ4G Patreon ...

By: ThinkingApe-TV

Follow this link:
How Censorship Fails US... - Video

Governments around the world are using stealthy strategies to manipulate the media

(Red Nose Studio)

Two beliefs safely inhabit the canon of contemporary thinking about journalism. The first is that the internet is the most powerful force disrupting the news media. The second is that the internet and the communication and information tools it spawned, like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, are shifting power from governments to civil society and to individual bloggers, netizens, or citizen journalists.

It is hard to disagree with these two beliefs. Yet they obscure evidence that governments are having as much success as the internet in disrupting independent media and determining the information that reaches society. Moreover, in many poor countries or in those with autocratic regimes, government actions are more important than the internet in defining how information is produced and consumed, and by whom.

Illustrating this point is a curious fact: Censorship is flourishing in the information age. In theory, new technologies make it more difficult, and ultimately impossible, for governments to control the flow of information. Some have argued that the birth of the internet foreshadowed the death of censorship. In 1993, John Gilmore, an internet pioneer, told Time, The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

Governments went from spectators in the digital revolution to sophisticated early adopters of advanced technologies that allowed them to monitor journalists, and direct the flow of information.

Today, many governments are routing around the liberating effects of the internet. Like entrepreneurs, they are relying on innovation and imitation. In countries such as Hungary, Ecuador, Turkey, and Kenya, officials are mimicking autocracies like Russia, Iran, or China by redacting critical news and building state media brands. They are also creating more subtle tools to complement the blunt instruments of attacking journalists.

As a result, the internets promise of open access to independent and diverse sources of information is a reality mostly for the minority of humanity living in mature democracies.

How is this happening? As journalists, weve seen firsthand the transformative effects of the internet. It seems capable of redrafting any equation of power in which information is a variable, starting in newsrooms. But this, it turns out, is not a universal law. When we started to map examples of censorship, we were alarmed to find so many brazen cases in plain sight. But even more surprising is how much censorship is hidden. Its scope seems hard to appreciate for several reasons. First, some tools for controlling the media are masquerading as market disruptions. Second, in many places internet usage and censorship are rapidly expanding at the same time. Third, while the internet is viewed as a global phenomenon, censorship can seem a parochial or national issuein other words, isolated. Evidence suggests otherwise.

See the article here:
21st-century censorship