Introductory Materials
- Television Censorship"In some ways, television censorship at that time resembled movie censorship in the 1930s. Like the movie studios in the early 1930s, the television networks of the 1950s had a code, but it was self-administered and largely toothless. But several forces kept the developing TV networks from outraging public decency."
- Cable Television and Censorship: A BibliographyA short bibliography from 1985, with a focus on cable networks.
Books
America's First Network TV Censor: The Work of NBC's Stockton Helffrich by ISBN: 9780809329182Date: 2010-04-23Offers a unique examination of early television censorship, centered around the papers of Stockton Helffrich, the first manager of the censorship department at NBC. Set against the backdrop of postwar America and contextualized by myriad primary sources including original interviews and unpublished material, Helffrich's reports illustrate how early censorship of advertising, language, and depictions of sex, violence, and race shaped the new medium.
Freedom to Create: The Implications of Antitrust Policy for Television Programming Content"A paper prepared for presentation to the Trade Regulation Roundtable, Association of American Law Schools' Annual Convention, San Francisco, California."
The Gatekeeper: My Thirty Years as a TV Censor by ISBN: 9780815606833Date: 2001-03-30From 1960 to 1990, Alfred R. Schneider served as head of standards and practices, or "chief censors," for the ABC television network. From his unique vantage point, Schneider managed issues of taste and morality that determined what millions of U.S. viewers watched. During his tenure the nation's attitudes changed drastically, as did the content shown on American airwaves. Controversies arose about TV's influence on children, its portrayal of violence, and its introduction of once taboo subjects.
Saturday Morning Censors: Television Regulation Before the V-Chip by ISBN: 9780822322405Date: 1999-01-15Saturday Morning Censors examines the history of adults' attempts to safeguard children from the violence, sexism, racism, and commercialism on television since the 1950s. Drawing on archival studio material, interviews with censors and animators, and social science research, Hendershot analyzes media activist strategies, sexism and racism at the level of cartoon manufacture, and the product-linked cartoons of the 1980s, such as Strawberry Shortcake and Transformers.
Television Censorship and the Law by ISBN: 9780566001765Date: 1979-01-01The text includes discussions of television and censorship, the BBC, independent television, television and advertising, legal restraints, external pressures, internal pressures and the future of censorship.
The Television Code: Regulating the Screen to Safeguard the Industry by ISBN: 9781477317013Date: 2018-09-26Using archival documents from the Federal Communications Commission, NBC, the NAB, and a television reformer, Senator William Benton, this book explores the run-up to the adoption of the 1952 Television Code from the perspectives of the government, TV viewers, local broadcasters, national networks, and the industry's trade association.
You Can't Air That: Four Cases of Controversy and Censorship in American Television Programming by ISBN: 9780815631507Date: 2007-10-24In this illuminating book, David S. Silverman assesses four controversial television programs from the perspective of media history, assessing the censorship present at all four networks and the political and intellectual inertia it produces in broadcast television. Beginning with The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the sixties, the author also examines The Richard Pryor Show, TV Nation, and Politically Incorrect.
