censorship n. Reference library
The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military
... n. the practice of officially examining books, films, etc., and suppressing unacceptable...
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World Encyclopedia
... System whereby a government-appointed body or official claims the right to protect the public interest by influencing the release of any item of mass communication. Censorship usually falls into four broad categories - politics, religion, pornography or violence. Material may be censored before dissemination or may be prevented or seized by the authorities. Censorship raises questions about the freedom of speech, and advanced communications technology (such as the Internet) have made policing more...
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A Dictionary of Journalism
...censorship The prohibition and/or control of what information may be published or otherwise made public. The power to censor is normally associated with governments and states ( see broadcast ban ; Official Secrets Act ) but forms of censorship may also be practised by media proprietors , by the courts ( see injunctions ; reporting restrictions ), and even by armed criminal gangs ( see deaths of journalists ). See also chilling effect ; licensing of journalists ; self-censorship ; whistleblower...
censorship Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Book
...the globe. 1. Definitions 2. History of censorship 3. Censorship and governance 4. Beyond the book 1. Definitions Censorship ’s formal definition, referring to the inspection of materials before publication, only partially describes it in practice. The chair of the Australian Literature Censorship Board in the 1930s was able to maintain that Australia had no censorship because books were prohibited only after publication, rather than before. Its broadest definition, however, suggests that censorship is the constitutive principle for all speech...
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A Dictionary of Publishing
...censorship The act of banning, or removing portions of, a book, film, music, painting, or speech, because they are considered by government authorities, or the public, to be either politically or culturally unacceptable, or a threat to public safety. Censorship can be imposed, at one end of the scale, through the legal system which defines what is and is not permissible through laws that cover, for example, libel, blasphemy, and race hatred. At the other end of the scale it can be imposed through the restriction or destruction of information: for example,...
censorship n. Quick reference
A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.)
..., IV–V), where he used it to explain the distortion of meaning in dreams. According to Freud, the first censorship operates between the unconscious ( 2 ) and the preconscious , and the second censorship between the preconscious and consciousness : ‘To every transition from one system to that immediately above it (that is, every advance to a higher stage of psychical organization) there corresponds a new censorship’ (p. 192). See also free association...
censorship Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Military History
... is strictly the review by an authority of any material before publication or dissemination, with the legal right to prevent, alter, or delay its appearance. The term is often loosely used to reflect voluntary arrangements between armed forces and the media, or in criticism of any system other than complete press freedom. Historically, censorship has been habitually practised by most governments, or other political and religious authorities. Censorship in the military sense has only become an issue in modern times, with the growth of liberal or...
censorship Reference library
The New Oxford Companion to Law
... Censorship commonly refers to the determination by a public official that certain material is unsuitable for publication or performance on grounds such as morality, religion, politics, or national security . The material may be banned outright or its circulation restricted to those thought less susceptible to its influence. Beyond these administrative decisions, the concept can encompass many forms of penalty after publication, such as laws of sedition, racial hatred, and obscenity . These limits vary greatly with national approaches to freedom of...
censorship Reference library
Garner's Modern English Usage (5 ed.)
... (= the practice or institution of suppressing the expression of ideas thought to be uncongenial to those in power) is a word whose mention in AmE immediately brings up the First Amendment. It is one of those politically charged vogue terms that people use irresponsibly. It shouldn’t mean simply the denial of governmental largesse; that is, an artist who is denied federal subsidies is not the object of censorship. The word should refer to active suppression, not merely lack of support. ...
CENSORSHIP Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (2 ed.)
...views. In 1554, Italian rabbis established a system of self-censorship aimed at anticipating church censorship, an example that was followed in other countries. One case of self-censorship was the deletion by Ashkenazi Jews of a sentence from the ʿAleinu prayer in the face of (unjustified) allegations that the passage in question was meant as a disparagement of Jesus. Books were banned because they were considered erotic or because they contained legal decisions regarded as incorrect. Censorship was also a tool in ideological struggles, for example, between...
Censorship Reference library
Rebecca Knuth
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World
...Jonathon , and Nicholas J. Karolides , eds. Encyclopedia of Censorship . Rev. ed. New York: Facts on File, 2005. Useful compendium of topics related to censorship, especially the country-by-country review of censorship policies. Karolides is known for his excellent work, 100 Banned Books (1999). Jansen, Sue Curry . Censorship: The Knot That Binds Power and Knowledge . New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Provocative book that combines political and social theories and poses “market censorship” as an arena of social control. Knuth, Rebecca . Libricide:...
Censorship Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature
...was retained and censorship powers were vested with prefects, who were encouraged, certainly as far as plays were concerned, to pay more attention to moral rather than political issues. Under Fascism , censorship became an important weapon of social control and one of the means by which the regime prevented the propagation of ideas it disliked. Press freedom was limited by decree in 1923 , and by 1925 was effectively abolished, though the regime was content initially to operate, largely unchanged, the pre-existing mechanisms of censorship for the theatre...
censorship Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Irish History (2 ed.)
...the effective means of censorship into the 19th century. By mid‐century, however, the focus of censorship had shifted from the seditious to the obscene. Between 1842 and 1889 several acts specifically imposed censorship on printed material. The Obscene Publications and Customs Consolidation Acts ( 1857 and 1876 ) were the most important. Together they allowed obscene material to be destroyed, owners to be prosecuted, and, unofficially, the maintenance of a blacklist. The First World War brought new priorities, and the censorship of news was...
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A Dictionary of Film Studies (2 ed.)
...and critical activity. Thought about in this way censorship is the end result of an ongoing process embodying complex and often contradictory relations of power. See also dubbing . Further Reading: Biltereyst, Daniël and Vande Winkel, Roel Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World (2013). Couvares, Francis G. Movie Censorship and American Culture (2006). Grieveson, Lee Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early-Twentieth-Century America (2004). Mehta, Monika Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema ...
Censorship Reference library
Mary Klages
The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States
...censorship must encompass any means by which women writers have been pressured or restrained in what or how they write. Traditional discussions define three categories of censorship, which become prevalent in three distinct eras of United States history: religious censorship, which dominated the United States during the Puritan era, when blasphemy and sacrilege were civil crimes; political censorship, which arose during the Revolutionary era, when sedition and treason against the established government became prosecutable; and moral or cultural censorship—the...
Censorship Reference library
Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment
... . In the eighteenth century, the word censorship was used to denote all regulations on the circulation of books and ideas. Censorship was often seen as inherently antithetical to Enlightenment ideals, but the relationship between censors and authors was more complicated than the well-known stories of imprisoned writers and condemned books make it seem. Enlightenment authors and censorship officials sometimes fought the same enemies, and Enlightenment demands for press freedom stopped well short of advocating complete deregulation of publishing....
Censorship Reference library
Nicole Moore
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory
...Censorship Definitions In 1988 , Sue Curry Jansen described censorship as “the knot that binds power and knowledge,” and this binding has remained, loosely or tightly, at the heart of the dynamic between censorship and literature. 1 Censorship has been an aspect of social communication for as long as societies have conceived of the latter as a public good, and in the way that, through Jansen’s knot, they have been mutually determining, censorship and literature have been coeval. Censorship defines the literary by outlawing that which it is not allowed...
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A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion
...of authors, publishers, and readers to obey the dictates of these Rabbis. The censorship that did exist was of two kinds–external and internal. External censorship was exercised by governmental bodies who ordered the excision from Jewish publications of passages held to be attacks on Gentiles or on the Christian faith. The Jewish authorities, too, anticipated this type of intervention by themselves deleting or altering such ‘dangerous’ passages. Internal censorship was imposed by Rabbis who had the necessary power over books believed to contain...
censorship Reference library
M. R. D. Foot
The Oxford Companion to World War II
... fall of France ; Pétain 's regime was more stringent. The letters home of British servicemen were censored by their junior officers, whose own letters were liable to chance censorship at base. Letters, from civilians and serving men alike, going overseas were channelled through a central censorship bureau in Liverpool, where random inspection produced a certain amount of useful intelligence, most of it on the state of home morale. Here, and in many other censors' offices, letters were often as a matter of routine criss-crossed with an X of brush-strokes...
Censorship Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (2 ed.)
...own censorship at General Headquarters South-West Pacific Area, which caused some friction with Australian journalists and editors. The Australian Army Public Relations Directorate had a separate censorship role, but in practice subordinated this to the requirements of MacArthur's headquarters, while the services themselves had only an advisory relationship to the Censorship Division and the Chief Censor. The Ministry of Information was abolished in 1950 , to be replaced by the Australian News and Information Bureau and its successors. Formal censorship on...
