Regulation

Within the media you will find plenty of regulation in place too make sure that there is fair representation, which inturn stops any bias and therefore any complaints that comes with it. There are many different laws that have been passed over the years, all for different issues, and all in place to help make sure that the audience is happy.

One is the Race Relations Act which was passed in 1976 in the United Kingdom. It mixes the regulations of previous Race Relation Acts as well as some more up to date regulations. It's main purpose is to make sure that any media institution may not broadcast and/or publish anything which could be deemed racially or ethically offensive.

The Obscene Publications Act, first passed in 1959 and later redrafted in 1964, is introduced so that nothing deemed as 'Obscene' can be broadcast and/or published within the Media. This is where the 'Water-shed' comes in. In the United Kingdom, nothing offense can be played before 9pm. After 9pm you can broadcast more mature content. There is another 'watershed' for anything deemed 18+, which is after 11pm. The watershed ends at 5:30am. In different countries, the watershed times differ, for example in the United States the water-shed is 10pm to 6am.

The Representattion of the People Acts (1983) gives each of the main Politcal Parties an equal amount of time in which they may broadcast during the year. This law also helps to regulate how exactly they may use this broadcast time. This is so that one party does not have more broadcast time, therefore have more influence over the public opinion, and thus there is no bias. 

The Public Order Act of 1986 is similar to the Race relations act, in that it helps regulate material which could be deemed offensive to any ethnic or national group. It states that anything which may portray violent disorder, rioting, fear or provocation of violence, Affray or Harassment, alarm of distress. 

The Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1986 and was created so that people of both genders are equally represented in the media as well as in the industry. It was later replaced by the Equality Act in 2010. It allows for men and women, and in 2008 transexuals, to be protected from discrimination on the grounds of sex and/or marriage. 

In 1990 The Broadcasting Act was brought in. This law states that the Independent Television Commision (ITC) must make sure that anything that they broadcast will not be deemed offensive in any way. This act is sometimes seen 'as a quintessential example of Thatcherism' by both supporters and critics.

There are many other regulatory bodies which help to keep the media 'in check', and to make sure that all audiences remain pleased when watching a program. Although you may find programs which have been purposfully designed to create controversy, the majority of programs which you see have been carefully inspected before being shown to the public, whether that be through screenings or through people with power. The Office of Communications (OFCOM) was estabilished in 2002 in the United Kingdom, and as of 2003 became the main regulatory body for broadcasting, telecommunications and postal idustries of the UK. Nowadays most of what you see on TV have gone through them first.

Ethical, legal and regulatory issues

Just like any major company, Disney has its share of Ethical, Legal and Regulatory Issues. These include Copyright, Censorship, Competition, Ownership, Representation and Propaganda/ Influence, along with many other things. 

Copyright is an issue with any company, not just Disney. The first Copyright laws were introduced in Britain, due to the fact that there were books that had been wrongfully copies and claimed to be the works of others. The first Statute was 'An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned', or just 'The Statute of Anne' for short, and was introduced in 1709. Copyright basically means that the original author/ artist of a piece of work are to have full credit for their work. If you take a piece of copyrighted work and claim it as your own, without getting formal permission from the owner, you would face a criminal charge. 

One of the major controversies of the company is the Subliminal Messages which were supposedly placed within a few films. These messages were discovered by the America Life League during the mid 90's. They claimed that several films such as The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Rescuers all contained sexual innuendo's within them. The Lion King allegation was denied by an animator at Disney, Tom Sito. The scene in question was one when Simba is looking up towards the sky and the stars spell out a message. Sito explains that it says 'SFX' as in Special Effects and was intended to be an Easter Egg signature for the department, however people interpreted it as 'SEX' which caused the controversy. These controversial supposed ‘subliminal messages’ did spark a recall of some titles in order for them to be re-edited before being re-released. One such example of this is ‘The Rescuers’. On the 8^th January 1999 had to recall 3.4 million copies of the film after an image of a topless woman was found in two of the films frames. Considering that there are around 110,000 frames in the entire film, it isn’t a surprise that this isn’t normally noticeable when viewing the film normally. A spokeswoman from ‘the independent’ gave a statement two days after the recall was announced stating that ‘A Disney spokeswoman said that the images in The Rescuers were placed in the film during production, but she declined to say what they were or who placed them... The company said the aim of the recall was to keep its promise to families that they can trust and rely on the Disney brand to provide the best in family entertainment.’ The film was edited and eventually re-released March 23, 1999. 

Disney over the years has also had opposition from those who think that they represent females in a certain way, which shows how a woman should act and what they are expected to do. Many of their mainstream princesses all possess similar details such as very curvy hourglass figure and big bright eyes. This is telling young girls that this is what you should grow up to look like, and if you don't, you won't end up with 'prince Charming'. Editor and writer for the New York Times Penny Orenstein wrote an article named ‘What’s wrong with Cinderella?’ which explores how this ‘princess’ image is everywhere and young girls can’t get away from its influence. The article can be found here (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24princess.t.html?pagewanted=all ). Another way in which some groups are concerned about the influence on young girls is how the princesses always need a man to rescue them, even if they are strong themselves. Although you must remember that many of the stories in which the princesses originated from were written in times when the roles of men and women were very different from today. 

Background Information

The Walt Disney Company, or more commonly known as just Disney, is the largest media group in the world based on gross revenue alone. It was founded by Walt and Roy Disney on the 16th October 1923 and was originally known as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. It took on it contemporary name in 1986. Although best known for it films from the Walt Disney Motion Picture Group, Disney also owns other studios, including the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and 14 theme parks around the world.


The company's current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President is Robert 'Bob' Iger. He was made president of the company in 2000. Then in 2005 he succeeded Micheal Eisner as the company's CEO, this was after a shake up of management by Roy E. Disney (Roy O. Disney' son). In 2006 he oversaw the acquisition of Pixar Studios (which at the time was owned by Steve Jobs) for $7.4 billion in an all-stock transaction, even though there was a strained relationship between the two companies. Then in 2009, he led the company to acquire Marvel Entertainment, which allowed Disney to broaden its character franchises. The reason for the sudden change of management came after a a series of failures in different areas of the company. Starting when Roy E. Disney had an application for an extension of his term as a board member rejected, he put in for resignation on 30th November 2003, explaining that there was a "serious differences of opinion about the direction and style of management" within the company. He had struggled with the CEO at the time Michael Eisner after more supporters of Eisner were appointed high ranking positions, meaning that Disney's influence began to wane within the company. Shortly after his resignation he set up the website 'savedisney.com', in order to try and oust Eisner and those who supported him, as well as trying to re-vamp Disney as a whole. So on the 3rd March 2004 at an Annual Disney Shareholders meeting, it came as a surprise that an amazing unprecedented 43% of Disney's shareholders, predominantly rallied by former board members Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, voted to oppose the re-election of Eisner to the corporate board of directors. This opposition allowed them the chance to strip Eisner of his chairmanship and give it to George J. Mitchell, Roy Disney's campaign regarded Mitchell himself unfavorably; 25% of shareholders opposed Mitchell's re-election to the board in the same election. On March 13 2005, Eisner announced that he would step down as CEO of the company. Roy eventually re-joined the company as a non-voting Director Emeritus (meaning professor) and consultant. On August 7th of the same year, Roy shut down the 'savedisney' website, and it officially went offline.