Introduction

Media is all around us. We as a society absorb media from television, radio, magazines, billboards, and newspapers. Media has such a strong effect on our lives that we do not even notice its presence sometimes.  It reflects and sustains the values and traditions of our striving, but necessary democracy.  The freedom to read and write is essential to the democratic way of life, but today that freedom is being threatened. Private groups and public authorities everywhere are working to remove both books and periodicals from sales, to exclude certain books from public schools, to censor and silence magazines and newspapers, and to limit controversial books and periodicals to the general public.  They are also being brought against the educational system, films, radio, television, and against the graphic and theatrical arts.  Censorship occurs often in today’s society, much of which is justifiable, but in some cases is simply unnecessary.  The issue that arises with censorship is that it prevents the people from being exposed to a wide variety of views. The question to ask ourselves is do different aspects of media censorship hinder tolerance or benefit our society?