Media Obscenity and the Absolutism-Relativism Debate: A Social Responsibility Perspective on Self-Censorship

This work focuses on the problematic taming of the mass media obscenity in the face of the quandary which the conflicts between absolutist and relativist conceptualizations of it put society in. The dilemma of protecting society from obscenity’s evils on the one hand and protecting the freedom of the press on the other hand, and how censorship fares with striking a balance, is discussed. The paper differentiates between the ‘letter’ and the ‘spirit’ of the Social Responsibility Theory, identifying the recommendations of the Hutchins Commission as the letter and the autonomous independent nongovernmental source of the mandate of the commission as the spirit, and proposes social responsibility in the spirit and not just the letter of the Hutchins Commission as the approach to self-censorship that should lead us out of the quandary which absolutist versus relativist conceptualizations of mass media obscenity puts society in. Recommendations for bracing up to the obscenity problematic are made to the press including stepping up the education of the journalist to the broadest and most liberal, pushing for a lifting of the remaining constitutional and other legal constraints to the freedom of the press, and taking full responsibility for all the obscenities in the mass media so as to step forward to deal with it squarely by itself.