Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Censorship And Free Speech In Scientific Controversies, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Many publicly debated issues have implications for health, including smoking, pesticides, food additives, seat belts, fluoridation, vaccination and climate change. Campaigners on such issues use a variety of methods, including presenting evidence and arguments, denigrating opponents, lobbying and organising protests. In some cases, campaigners seek to censor opponents, most commonly on the grounds that their views are false and dangerous. To probe rationales for censorship, recent events in the Australian public debate over vaccination are examined. A citizens' group critical of vaccination has come under heavy attack, with pro-vaccination campaigners and politicians trying to shut down the group and restrict …

The Streisand Effect And Censorship Backfire, Sue Curry Jansen, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Barbra Streisand's attempt to restrict online views of her residence on a public website had the paradoxical effect of leading to many more views than if she had done nothing. Subsequently, attempts at censorship that end up being counterproductive have been dubbed the "Streisand effect." To better understand the dynamics of the Streisand effect, we examine five tactics used by censors to reduce outrage from their actions: (1) hiding the existence of censorship; (2) devaluing targets of censorship; (3) reinterpreting actions by lying, minimizing consequences, blaming others, and using benign framing; (4) using official channels to give an appearance of …

Sex, Censorship And Media Regulation In Japan: A Historical Overview, Mark Mclelland

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Over the past several decades alarmist reports about the supposed dangers of the sexualised nature of much Japanese popular culture have regularly featured in the English-language press. It has been claimed that Japan is 'awash' in all kinds of pornography, including child pornography (Larimer 1999; Fallows 1986: 38) and that insufficient attempts are made by the authorities to properly regulate the expression of sexual matters. A major concern of such reporting has been the supposed 'dark side' (McGinty 2002) of the manga (comics) which are ubiquitous in Japan and, since the 1980s, have become popular with young people worldwide. International …

New Media, Censorship And Gender: Using Obscenity Law To Restrict Online Self-Expression In Japan And China, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The widespread take-up of Internet technologies from the mid-1990s has proven challenging to nation states that seek to limit access to ideas, information or images that the political class considers dangerous or inappropriate for the general population. As a largely deterritorialized technology, the Internet allows access to material that circumvents national legislatures and ignores local ratings systems and in so doing facilitates all kinds of inter-cultural and transnational flows of communication. Different countries have different sensitivities regarding the kinds of material that should not be freely available to their citizens and although the entry of such material is closely scrutinized …

Book Review: The Art Of Censorship In Postwar Japan. Studies Of The Weatherhead East Asian Institute. By Kirsten Cather, Rowena G. Ward

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The practice of censorship is a divisive issue that is often justified on moral reasons rather than aesthetic or legalistic ones. It is perhaps because of the claims to morality rather than to the law that it is relatively rare for censorship (or more accurately in Japan’s case, obscenity) to be the subject of criminal trials. Yet, in Japan, from the occupation years through to the present day, there has been on average one high profile censorship trial per decade. In The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan, Kirsten Cather considers seven such censorship trials held between the 1950s and …

Sex And Censorship During The Occupation Of Japan, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This chapter entitled “Sex and Censorship During the Occupation of Japan” is excerpted from Mark McLelland’s Love, Sex and Democracy in Japan during the American Occupation (Palgrave MacMillan 2012). The book examines the radical changes that took place in Japanese ideas about sex, romance and male-female relations in the wake of Japan’s defeat and occupation by Allied forces at the end of the Second World War. Although there have been other studies that have focused on sexual and romantic relationships between Japanese women and US military personnel, little attention has been given to how the Occupation impacted upon the courtship …

Deadly Censorship Games: Keeping A Tight Lid On The Euthanasia Debate, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

TALKING ABOUT DEATH AND DYING - Why don’t we talk about death and dying? We can choose so many of our life experiences, but it seems we can have no say in whether we die in pain or at peace. Today we look at the Australian government’s efforts to suppress discussion of euthanasia.

There’s plenty of information available on how to kill yourself violently, so why does the Australian government so vigorously censor information on peaceful methods?

Voluntary euthanasia societies have long been pushing to legalise death with dignity. According to opinion polls, a strong majority of Australians support legalisation, …

Australia's Proposed Internet Filtering System : Its Implications For Animation, Comic And Gaming (Acg) And Slash Fan Communities, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper investigates the implications of the Australian Government’s proposed Internet filtering system in the light of Australia’s blanket prohibition of ‘child pornography’ (including cartoons, animation, drawings, digitally manipulated photographs, and text) for Australian fan communities of ACG and slash. ACG/slash fan groups in Australia and elsewhere routinely consume, produce and disseminate material containing ‘prohibited content’ (i.e. featuring fictitious ‘under-age’ characters in violent and sexual scenarios). Moreover, a large portion of the fans producing and trading in these images are themselves ‘under age’. Focusing specifically upon the overwhelmingly female fandom surrounding Japanese ‘Boys’ Love’ (BL) manga, the paper argues that …

Review Of Celia Marshik, British Modernism And Censorship, Guy R. Davidson

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

With this book, Celia Marshik makes a significant contribution to the growing critical literature on the interrelations between censorship and sexual representation in late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century British literature.

The International Yaoi Boys’ Love Fandom And The Regulation Of Virtual Child Pornography: Current Legislation And Its Implications, Mark J. Mclelland, S. Yoo

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This article looks at current international legislation regulating child pornography, particularly at the category of virtual child pornography, or purely fictional images and textual representations of young people defined as “minors”. Current legislation has been drafted with adult male pedophiles in mind in an attempt to stop harm to real children. However, the paper points out that the legislation also inadvertently criminalizes a large, predominantly female fandom of manga fans who use the Internet to participate in online fan clubs dedicated to a Japanese manga genre known as yaoi, which celebrates the love shared between fictional “beautiful boys.” It is …

Film Censorship As A Good Business In Colonial Korea: Profiteering From Hollywood's First Golden Age, 1926-36, Brian M. Yecies

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Between 1926 and 1936, cinema in colonial Korea was a vibrant business, involving the production of domestic films and the distribution and exhibition of American, British, Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Russian films. During this decade, the first golden age of American cinema in Korea, Hollywood films overwhelmingly dominated the Korean market. Korea was an important territory that Hollywood used in its overall global expansion campaign. Amid this globalization operation, the Government-General of Chosen’s film censorship apparatus was a financially self-sustaining operation. It paid for its operation by profiteering from the application of more than 6,700 American and 630 other …

The World Of Yaoi: The Internet, Censorship And The Global “Boys’ Love” Fandom, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper looks at the recent explosion of cultural concern over child sexual abuse and child pornography, particularly as it relates to the trading of such images via the internet. It is noted that legislation originally enacted to prohibit the sexualized representation of actual children has recently been extended to include fictional representations and in Australia includes text as well as graphics. Taking the online global fandom dedicated to ‘boys’ love’ (also known as yaoi) as an example, I argue that legislation prohibiting fictional accounts of ‘child’ sex-abuse is ill-conceived and potentially damaging to human rights and freedom of expression. …