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/* What is not censorship? */
Will somebody please be a dear and redo this article [[User:DLerner|DLerner]] 06:34, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
I tried to edit the introductory section that should have defined what censorship is but did not. I cannot get into it. Therefore, I’ll attempt to define "censorship" in this section.
In the United States there are many definitions of “censorship” but they all have the following characteristics in common: 1) action to stop or hinder others from gaining access to a written, graphic, video or oral source of material, 2) the person or people taking the action have logical, rational and/or emotional reasons for blocking access such as one or more of the following bases: morality, age appropriateness, national security and protection, invasion of privacy and libel or scandalous material and 3) the person or people either have legitimate power [government (legislative, judiciary or executive)], legal recourse by group/groups or assertions with the power of numbers (i.e., parental groups) or use other bases of power (i.e., referent, expert authority, etc.).
In America, censorship has been a relatively innocuous issue. Historically, the term has been reserved for the practice of officially examining books, literature, movies, art, video games, etc. with the intention of suppressing unacceptable parts deemed unacceptable by a group on the basis of a standard of morality, a religious belief or standard of violence...typically on the basis of age inappropriateness. It has not reached the depths of that’s its reached in other countries. It has had few political overtones.
The American news media (print and television) have had periods of controversy and have had accusations of liberal bias leveled against it by conservative political groups including the Republican Party. This has never escalated to accusations of censorship. Recently, accusations of political bias have been heard in the opposite direction: with a few liberal political groups suggesting that the news media provides a narrow vacuous source of “the Republicans said, the Democrats said” type of news…offering no commentary nor analyses. If there is a bias, neither party is crying foul. Again there has been nothing approaching accusations of censorship. However, the “alternative news media” on the Internet especially those that use legitimate news standards of analyses, have grown in number and size. All operating within the current political climate of polarity.
The term “censorship” has been used in other countries, in other time frames and in other contexts: South and Central American dictatorships censor newspapers/airways, China’s communist dictatorship censor political demonstration and dissent and Hitler censored all but Nazi propaganda in Germany. [[User:PMiller|PMiller]] 04:32, 15 September 2011 (CST)
== Rewritten intro ==
