M3 Radio Legal and Ethical Issues - Unit 14

 Introduction

In this report I will look into all the possible legal and ethical issues that could arise during the production of my radio show. Furthermore, I will look into the different legal and ethical considerations required so that my radio show complies with regulatory bodies. I will also provide evidence on how I am adhering to the rules set out by the regulatory bodies.

Radio Regulators

The regulatory body for communication services, including radio, is Ofcom. Ofcom regulate broadband, home phone and mobile services, TV and radio. Ofcom looks after the airwaves used by wireless devices; furthermore they also have online services to help companies have effective systems in place to protect their users from any harm. In general, Ofcom's primary duty is to protect the public from any potential harm via communication services and wireless devices, they work with the Parliament to ensure our safety. To add to this, Ofcom help to ensure the people across the UK are happy with what they hear on the TV and radio and that programmes reflect the audience they serve. Viewers and listeners are able to send in a complaint about what they heard on TV or radio to Ofcom and often, they investigate further if they believe the complaint outlined an important issue or broadcasters breaching Ofcom's rules.

Ofcom has a broadcasting code which is set out in terms of principles and rules. Broadcasters must ensure that they comply with these rules as set out in the code. These rules are:
  1. Protecting the under-eighteens
  2. Harm and offence
  3. Crime, disorder, hatred and abuse
  4. Religion
  5. Due impartiality and due accuracy
  6. Elections and referendums
  7. Fairness
  8. Privacy
  9. Commercial references on TV
  10. Commercial communications on radio
These broadcasting rules must be followed so that TV and radio and other communication services are safe and inclusive for everyone. This code acknowledges the importance of freedom of expression but points out that those rights come with responsibilities. I will follow all of these codes so that my radio show is not at risk of being investigated by Ofcom or potentially taken of air. I will ensure that my radio show has no harmful information or content to anybody, especially people under eighteen as they are the most vulnerable. Furthermore, my radio show does not make any political statements or political stances and does not touch these topics; I will only discuss the topic of my radio in my show which is history and aviation. An important code that applies to radio stations is number 10, I have to ensure that my radio station's adverts are transparent and not misleading customers. I have a Ryanair ad featured in my radio show, however I will make sure that none of the information or dialogue included in this advert misleads any of the listeners and only tells completely factual information. Finally, I do not want to offend any audiences with my radio station, so I will not include any hate speech or religious commentary or anything that could cause offence to a minority or group of people in general. My radio show will solely focus on relaying interesting and nostalgic information to my target audience about history and aviation in Doncaster and South Yorkshire. 

The logo for Ofcom (Regulatory body for Radio and other communication services)



Advert Regulators

The regulatory body for advertising is the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), this regulatory body has a sister organisation called CAP (The Committee of Advertising Practice) and this regulatory body is responsible for writing the advertising codes which the ASA enforce. This means that these two bodies work very closely together in order to keep advertisements transparent, truthful and safe for everybody to see in the UK. There are two different codes made by CAP, one is the non-broadcast code and the other is the broadcast code. There are 33 different rules set out in the broadcast code alone, some of these rules are extremely niche and miniscule issues, therefore I will clump them together with the major rules and explain them in this report. I will follow each and every rule on the broadcast code so that my radio show's advertisement is safe and transparent. The rules on the broadcast code are:
  1. Compliance
  2. Misleading advertising
  3. Harm and offence
  4. Privacy
  5. Protection of under-eighteens and rules around involving children in advertising
  6. Political and controversial matters.
  7. Prohibited categories 
  8. Faith and religion 
  9. Gambling
  10. Competitions
I must follow all of these codes when creating the advert for my radio show so that I do not cause any legal issues with the ASA or CAP.  If any of these codes are broken and are included in my radio show advert then this could result in the advert being taken off air. This would seem very bad for my radio station in general and would make it look less professional and therefore less people would want to listen to it. Every radio station needs to uphold its reputation, and part of this is done by making sure you are abiding by the codes set out by CAP and enforced by the ASA. I will follow these codes by ensuring that my advert does not include any of the prohibited content. By this I mean my advert will be transparent and not misleading, it will not include anything which could potentially cause harm or offence and it will not contain any content that is correlated to any of the prohibited categories like gambling or competitions. My advert will be safe for all ages, races, sexualities, religions and genders to watch as it will not contain any offensive or harmful content. My Ryanair advert will simply be used to factually advertise the airline company and their low-cost flights. 

The logos for ASA and CAP (Regulatory bodies for advertising)

Evidence of Adhering

Radio Script


This is the first section of my script for my radio show as a whole, this part of my script perfectly evidences how I am adhering to the rules set out by Ofcom. Firstly, the introduction section of my script adheres to the rules; this is because I address the audience in a friendly way which does not include any dialogue which could cause offence or harm as this is the second rule in the broadcasting code. Additionally, my jingle does not break any of these codes either, this is because I obtained the jingle from a copyright free website called FreeSound. Furthermore, my jingle adheres to these codes set out by Ofcom because it is a simple, quick and memorable sound which is unique to my radio show and does not cause any offence, harm, unfairness and is safe for under-eighteens to hear, as with the rest of my radio show. To add to this. my radio script also does not cause any ethical or moral issues because it is inclusive to all audiences; although my radio show has a target audience which I believe will be more interested in my radio show compared to other audiences, this does not mean other audiences cannot listen. My radio show can be enjoyable for anyone and will not cause any offence or harm to anyone as all the dialogue and content included in my radio show is inclusive and friendly. There are many community radio's which target specific communities with their content, although this is not ethically wrong it means that only a very niche group will want to listen to that station, however anybody could listen to my radio station. On the other hand, it is likely that only people who live around Doncaster and South Yorkshire will listen to my station but this does not mean that my radio show has any ethical issues and is a part of Geographic's.  

Advert Script



This is my radio script for my Ryanair advert which will play part way through my radio program. This radio script adheres to the broadcasting rules set out by CAP.  My radio advert's dialogue does not include any misleading advertising, harm or offence and does not include any information about gambling or competitions. I ensured that when I was writing my script during the pre-production phase that I adhered to each rule and made sure my advert was transparent and not misleading or offensive in anyway shape or form. There would be consequences if I included these prohibited contents in my radio advert script. Furthermore, my advert script does not raise any moral or ethical issues because it does not include any dialogue or sound effects that could potentially harm a group of people or offend them. My advert is not targeted towards a specific age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity or religion as Ryanair is a large company who targets mainstreamers in psychometric profiles. 

Copyright

Copyright is extremely important to any broadcaster or company creating any sort of media product if they plan to release it to the public eye. This is because, if copyright is somehow included in your media product, this could result in legal issues which could cause the broadcaster to pay a fine and/or take down their media product as a whole. It is imperative that you do not include any copyright in media products, including radio. The most common issue with copyright is often music, some broadcasters may accidentally include copyrighted music in their product without noticing and then they have to suffer the consequences which is why you have to be careful and attentive to ensure this doesn't occur. Throughout my pre-production phase I worked around copyright and thought about it extensively so that my production phase could be as effective and smooth as possible without any potential copyright issues in the future. One measure I made sure to take was using copyright free sounds; a jingle is a very important feature in radio shows and all successful radio stations have a unique jingle. I made sure when I was choosing my jingle that I was searching on a copyright free website. The website I chose was FreeSound and by using this website I was able to choose a suitable jingle which was copyright free and caused no legal issues; it also matches perfectly with the theme of my radio show. 

Although I did not use any copyrighted music or sounds in my radio show, If I chose to do this there would be precautions I would take beforehand to solve any issues. The most important action I would have to take is researching who owns this copyrighted media, and asking them personally if I was able to use their copyrighted media in my radio show. If I chose to use their copyrighted product without asking for permission beforehand, then they could sue me and I could potentially be fined and my radio could be taken off air which is a major issue for my radio station and the reputation of it. Overall, it is best to take the precautions and measures to avoid these issues which is what I did, to ensure my radio show is legal and correct.

Bibliography

 Ofcom (2021). What is Ofcom? [online] Ofcom. Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/what-is-ofcom#:~:text=Ofcom%20is%20the%20regulator%20for.

D’costa, R. (2021). Most important things need to know about U.K. Ofcom Broadcasting Code. [online] www.bizlawuk.co.uk. Available at: https://www.bizlawuk.co.uk/most-important-things-need-to-know-about-u-k-ofcom-broadcasting-code/.

 Practice, A.S.A. | C. of A. (2023). Broadcast Code. [online] www.asa.org.uk. Available at: https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/advertising-codes/broadcast-code.html.

 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unit 15 P1: Audio Visual Promo

Audio Visual Promos   Audio Visual Promo to Inform Public Information Film - Aids 1986 (youtube.com) The United Kingdom Public Information Film (1986) to create awareness about Aids spreading across the UK is an advert with the purpose to inform. This is an audio visual promo with the purpose to inform because the promo is solely to inform the public about aids and how dangerous it can be otherwise everyone would be unaware and uninformed so this audio visual promo was issued to inform the public about the spreading disease.  The promo's visuals are extremely dramatic and includes natural disasters like volcanic eruptions and rock slides. Although these visuals have nothing to do with the aids disease itself, the Government used this tactically to make viewers pay attention to the advert so that they can be informed about aids. The Government knew if they used a plain black screen behind the text not as many people would pay attention and ultimately less people would be informed ab
Read more

P6 Audio Visual Promo

Image
 Introduction In this report, I will upload the link to the finished audio visual promo along with screenshot evidence of the editing process of the final edit. These screenshots will display what I was editing or changing in Premiere Pro and I will also include a brief description of what I was editing in each screenshot.  Final Video https://youtu.be/loumtYFJa-c This is the link to our finished video.  Screenshot Evidence 1. This is the first step in creating the final edit for the audio visual promo. Here, I am adding each clip into Premiere Pro, which is the software I am using to create the edit for this video. This is one of the most simple steps of the whole editing process. I added each clip into the software and then I watched through each clip to make sure it was suitable for the final edit. After this, I used the selector tool to move each clip into the the correct order so that the clips play out correctly.  This stage is very similar to the process of creating the offline
Read more

Audio Visual Promo P3

Image
 Audio Visual Promo P3 Location Recce This is a location recce which is an important pre-production document; this helps us with any details regarding the filming location for our audio visual promo. This document informs us of any contact details if necessary and any details that could affect our filming light the lighting and access issues.  Risk Assessment Call Sheet This is the call sheet that we produced for our audio visual promo, this is a vital pre-production document because it where we are filming, who is doing what and what equipment or props are needed for the filming. This helps inform everybody involved in the process of what they need and where they need to be so that the filming process goes as smoothly as possible. It is also essential to have our team members contact details so that it is easy to communicate with each other for any necessary reasons.  Shot Schedule Storyboard Script This is the script for the Audio Visual Promo. This gives insight as to what the actre
Read more