Woolwich terrorist attack essay (exam)

In 2013 a terrorist attack took place in Woolwich involving two muslims who attack a solider outside the Woolwich barracks. The attack was not shown on TV but a witness did capture one of the soldiers giving a speech in which he quoted the Quran. This was rapidly shared over social media an eventually news networks got a hold of it a showed it on the news. Due to it being shown on TV OFCOM were the regulators that had to deal with any complaints. OFCOM was established in 2003. They are a statutory regulator as they work with the government.

OFCOM was set up in order to regulate TV. The main problem with OFCOM is that unlike other regulators such as the BBFC and PEGI they have to be reactive. The reason for this is that OFCOM have to wait for complaints to be made about a program after it is released. This means that online PEGI and BBFC there not able to stop people being offended as they can't regulate thousands of programs before there released.

When the attack happened social and political factors were arose. One of the main factors was terrorism. This doesn't just mean that the attack was a terrorist attack, it showed the terrorist attacks can happen in England by people who were born in England. This created a moral panic as people didn't know who to trust after realising that terrorists don't just come from abroad but also come from England.

After the footage was broadcast OFCOM received between 700-800 complaints. The complaints weren't actually about what the terrorists were saying it was actually that they showed a dead corpse, a life, and blood before the water shed. OFCOM decided to uphold the complaints. What this shows is how OFCOM are rather lenient as they didn't see anything wrong with the footage.

I believe that showing the footage before the watershed of 9pm did serve a public interest. By showing the attack it lets people known that terrorist attacks can happen at any time even outside an army barracks. It also showed people that terrorists don't just come from aboard but are also born in England.

Due to the footage being filmed by a witness on there phone it was quickly spread across social media. On TV part of the corpse was blurred out. The only problem is that the video was then shared over social media via YouTube. The main problem with this is that OFCOM were not able to control the video once it had gone online and been shared millions of times. This mean that they weren't able to blur parts of the footage out. This meant that no matter how many complains they got about protecting children from the footage one way or another they would still probably see it.

I believe that OFCOM were justified to uphold the complains. The main reason for this is that it didn't actually show anything graphic on TV as part of the corpse was blurred out. Also, people were almost trying to divert away from the main message of the story about terrorism, which is served in the public interest.