1. Censorship

2. What is Censorship? Control – of information, material and ideas circulated within a society

3. Who censors? Everyone does, all the time, based on a value system that decides what is important. There are three main censoring institutions Family Church State

5. Why censor? To Alter Remove or Suppress ideas, material or information that is believed to be objectionable or offensive. family, church, state

6. How is censorship done? Through Examination of books, plays, movies, tv, magazines, radio, internet sites. Removal – material and people Prevention family church state

7. What? Ideas, beliefs and philosophy, which in our time, is primarily in the media whether it be spoken or written Pornography – this is very subjective as what is normally acceptable in one society is seen as forbidden in another

10. Where? All over the world. Some examples: 1.Book Banning – who? What titles? http://www.ala.org/bbooks/top100bannedbooks. html 2. Film Classification 3. Sex Education 4. Government Legislation – Europe (Nazism)

11. Top three books challenged or banned in 2004 1. The Chocolate War for sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint, being language, religious viewpoint, being unsuited to age group and violence 2. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, offensive language and violence 3. Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy and political viewpoint

12. Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, for offensive language and modeling bad behavior In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, for nudity and offensive language I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, for racism, homosexuality, sexual content, offensive language and unsuited to age group Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, for racism, offensive language and violence Other titles in the top 10 banned or challenged books

13. The top three reasons, in order, for challenging books are: 1.“sexually explicit” 2. “offensive language,” 3. “unsuited to age group.”

14. Some interesting “Censorship” websites Banned Books online: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned- books.htmlhttp://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned- books.html Censorship & book banning: http://georgesuttle.com/censorship/ Parents against bad books in schools: http://www.pabbis.com/ National Coalition Against Censorship: http://www.ncac.org/