Can They Say That On Television? Can they say that on Television? Yes, they can, and increasingly they do. The days of television being highly regulated, pure and decent may be over. It looks as if the ever-shifting rules governing what's OK to say on television are made to be broken. The amount of violence, vulgarity, and sexual content that can be found at 8:00 P.M. or afterwards this year on television is unprecedented in the history of broadcasting. Many people wonder how television could have sunk to such a low level of glorifying violence, embracing vulgar language, and expanding sexual content in current programming. Most viewers are troubled more by violence on TV than by profanity or sexual content, especially after being woken up by the Columbine High School tragedy in Colorado. Vulgar language is being embraced faster than we think. There are dirty words, and plenty of them, on prime-time TV. (Pennington, 1999) Prime time is also saturated with sex more explicitly than ever. Lusty scenes, partial nudity, free discussions of issues like the president’s oral sex, all show the media's general relaxation of sexual guidelines. Smith 2 There are a few subtle influences contributing to the loosening of broadcast content on television. They would including: staff cutbacks, which reduce departments responsible for enforci...
