Law Commons^™

“Smut And Nothing But”: The Fcc, Indecency, And Regulatory Transformations In The Shadows, Lili Levi

Lili Levi

For almost a century, American broadcasting has received a lesser degree of constitutional protection than the print medium. Although many of the FCC’s regulations in “the public interest” have been upheld against First Amendment challenge on the ground that broadcasting is exceptional, the traditional reasons given for such exceptionalism – scarcity and pervasiveness – have become increasingly careworn. Fighting that consensus, the FCC has aggressively pursued the regulation of indecency on radio and television since 2003. When the FCC’s enhanced indecency prohibitions swept up U2 front-man Bono’s fleeting expletive on a music awards show, broadcasters finally thought they had found …