Word: chipping
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While we tend to associate the promotion of "family values" in the political arena with conservative Republican sound bytes such as the infamous Dan Quayle/Murphy Brown debacle, Clinton's support of the V chip does not mark the first time that Democrats have urged families to monitor their children's exposure to the more-provocative aspects of the entertainment industry...
President Clinton recently announced his contribution to ending violent impulses in America. Jumping into the family values fray, he voiced his support for "parental responsibility" in regulating television viewing, made possible by a new techological innovation. A device called a "V chip" may now be built in to the back of the television, allowing parents to monitor programming that comes into their homes. Each program would be tagged with a violence rating; parents would simply adjust the V chip to the level of violence they would allow...
...Republican Senate, ironically putting aside usual objections to government involvement in favor of promoting the family, included support for the V chip in a recent telecommunications bill. While few would argue with the need for parents to protect their young children from the harms of the world, the publicity surrounding Clinton's endorsement of the Senate promotion of the V chip reveals a number of underlying problems...
Broadcasters also understandably have problems with any technology that might reduce the potential audience for their shows--and thus the potential ad revenue. CBS senior vice president Martin Franks points out, moreover, that the V chip ignores the fact that most homes have more than one TV, and parents surely won't replace every one. "Short of chaining the children to the sofa in the room in which the V-chip-equipped set is located, I don't see how this proposal is going to work," he says. Franks also fears that broadcasters will be barraged by groups with their...
Still, it is a solution that enables politicians to take a stand on violence with relatively little pain. "Look," says a Commerce Committee staff member whose boss opposes the V chip but still may support it, "it's easier to make a case for it than against it." Said Clinton last week: "This is not censorship. This is parental responsibility." And that's a difficult notion to oppose...