Indecency, Politics and the FCC: A New Round in the Culture Wars?

[Commentary] Just in time for the new presidential election cycle, the culture wars over indecent content on the broadcast television airwaves -- remember when Justin Timberlake had Janet Jackson naked by the end of that Super Bowl song? -- are heating up again after a period of dormancy. But unlike abortion and health care, the new battle in the culture wars features a topic on which potential candidates from both sides of the political aisle are likely to agree: indecency is bad and parents today need all the help they can get from the government -- specifically, from the Federal Communications Commission -- in protecting the eyes and ears of their young children from sexual images and language.

I doubt you'll ever hear a viable candidate say anything different in the age-old quest to appear family friendly. What politician, after all, is going to pound the podium during a live televised debate and proudly proclaim, "Fellow Americans, I'm here tonight to support your First Amendment right to receive indecent content -- all day, every day, all free -- on over-the-air television and radio stations. You want lurid language, nip slips, bare buttocks and Miley riding naked on a wrecking ball? Well, I say -- bring them on! The more T&A on TV, the better!" What sparked the new round in the culture wars? In March, the FCC fined TV station WDBJ (Channel 7) of Roanoke (VA) a whopping $325,000 for accidentally airing, for a total of three scandalous seconds during a television newscast, what the FCC called "extremely graphic and explicit sexual material, specifically, a video image of a hand stroking an erect penis." As one might very well suspect, this story did not have a happy ending for the station. Ultimately, no matter what you or I think, one this is sure -- we won't find any of the candidates now tossing their hats into the presidential ring disagreeing with the FCC's decision. The new battle in the culture wars might just fade fast.

[Clay Calvert is a professor and Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication at the University of Florida in Gainesville]