Controlling Obscenity In The Mass Media The Role Of NMC

With the modern advancement of technology and proliferation of the media, information dissemination and communication has become extremely stress-free around the globe including Ghana.

As communications become easier, so as the proliferation of obscene materials that may be offensive to the standard of decorum and morality in Ghanaian media.

The National Media Commission (NMC) as enacted by law should perform it duties including other stakeholders by applying media law and ethics without any interference to sanitize the media.

The concept of obscenity in the world is relative in a sense that discussing and testing for obscenity defer from each other countries depending on the moral principles, decency codes and social structure of that particular country.

In United State, the term obscene refers to material which the average person applying contemporary standards would find that, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, contains patently offensive depictions or descriptions of specified sexual conduct, and has no serious literary, artistic , political or scientific value.

As the question rises in global tobacco controlling, “why companies are not being ban from producing tobaccos” due to its negative effects on humanity? So it is in the production of materials that can be termed as obscene.

According to Alexander Cockburn, a once Britain’s Chief Justice, the law did not turn on the intentions of the creator or distributor of obscene materials, but rather on the effect on readers: “The test of obscenity is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.”

Obscenity in Ghanaian Media
Kudos to Tommy Annan-Forson and James Oberko who have portioned National Media Commission (NMC) to take an action against the television stations that telecast the pornographic movies streamed late on their airwaves such as Ice TV, XYZ TV and Thunder TV.

Additionally, in contrary to point (a) in the NMC guidelines, some Tv and radio news presenters sometimes always described sex related news extravagantly to the offensive of viewers and listeners that needs to be checked.

NMC Guidelines on Obscenity
7. Portrayal of Sex
(a) Treatment of sex in all programmes or as part of entertainment should be handled in a manner not to offend the moral dignity, decency and sensibilities of the audience.

(b) Documentaries or programmes dealing with a variety of sexual themes shall not make public and explicit what should be private and exclusive.

(c) Where a story involves actual sexual relations, it should be presented without undue exploitation of its sexual aspects.

(d) In representing sexual activity in televised or filmed drama, producers should consider whether the degree of explicitness is justified b the context in which it occurs.

(e) Actual sexual intercourse between humans should at no time be transmitted.

Social media with obscenities Individuals and groups on Facebook and Whatsapp has turned the various social platforms into sites of nakedness, vulgarity and obscenity where pornographic photos are shared. Recently, government moves to stop circulation of images of Mahama's lynching because immediately after the news, Ghana's social media was flooded with images and videos of his naked body with parts charred that can be termed as obscene which also against the law of privacy.

Social Media for good results without obscenities. I read about the DGG, a group of friends on Facebook who solve a problem of society by renovated the Apagya R/C Primary School in the Adansi South District in the Ashanti Region. The members of the group were able to perform this accomplishment by linking up with other friends in other countries to raise funds to renovate the school, with the help of the indigenes.

Obscenity in other media
As we have different forms of media for the dissemination of information in making something be in public domain through advertising, printing, issuance and appearance among others, to me, some Ghanaian men and especially women dress indecently that portrays themselves almost unclothed or naked.

These adopted foreign cultures of obscene dressing even in the Churches that portray sex and pornography has become dominant in the country that also needs to be checked.

The content of these indecent dressing becomes offensive to the current standards of decency or morality even sometimes than what appeared on traditional media which depraves and corrupts those whose minds are open to especially men.

To my understanding, dressing could be a form of media that disseminate information non-verbally to uncountable readers or viewers; without not being on television, film, picture, and on internet but physically.

Effort to address the situation
The effort to addressing the transgression of obscenity in the mass media, the NMC and other stakeholders should not act like the Auditor General till the court orders; but take pragmatic steps to let the laws work in order to deter the growth of profanity, pornography and other indecent comments to sanitize the media.

By: Abraham Frank Eshun
Journalist and Communication Consultant