REGULATING THE USE OF ABUSIVE LANGUAGE IN WEB SERIES: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INDIAN LEGAL SCENARIO
By Nidhi Sinha
(Sr. Assistant Professor, School of Law, North Cap University)
| Abstract The entertainment industry is considered to be one of the most flourishing industries in almost all developed and developing nations and films and television form an important part of this industry. With the advent of technology, internet platforms came into the picture, offering a cheaper alternative of watching films and serials to the audience, with an added advantage of convenience of time, place and device. The last few years saw an increasing boom in the concept of ‘web-series’ which, like a television serial, are written and performed in parts and have a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode-by-episode fashion. These web-series are released on various OTT (over-the-top) platforms which offer a video-media distribution system that allows users to access entertainment channels and videos. Unlike films in India, which are legally restricted through certification and censorship in the form of what a film-maker can and cannot show to the general audience, web-series are governed by a comparatively liberal post-regulatory approach. As a result, the content shown on such web-series majorly remains unregulated and unchecked, a repercussion of which has been an abundance of objectionable content shown in such series. One such factor is the excessive and unwarranted use of abusive and foul language used by actors in these web-series. Research suggests that use of abusive language in films and popular media affects viewers, especially young children, in an extremely negative manner since the more profanity and offensive language that young teens see in media, the more are the chances that they may believe such language to be acceptable to use and to be aggressive against others. The impact may differ for adults since adults who use offensive language do it to deal with their frustration or social conflict, since they lack proper communication skills and only such adults are prone to be influenced by the use of offensive language in films, yet the influence is far from positive. In light of this, it becomes extremely important to identify if there is a need to impose stricter measures in place to restrict the freedom exercised by web-series makers in terms of the content being shown and to analyze if the present law is adequate to deal with this issue. |
| Keywords Abusive language, Web-series, Harmful Impact. |
| Type | Research Paper |
| Information | Lex Humanitariae: Journal for a Change, Volume III Issue I, Pages 216-225 |
| DOI Link | https://doi-ds.org/doilink/04.2022-83588797/lexhumanitariae/V3I1/A27 |
| ISSN | 2582-5216 |
| Creative Commons | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |
| Copyright | © 2022- Lex Humanitariae: Journal for a Change |