Power Struggles,Regulation and Responsibility

This article explores the relationship between the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and government during the implementation of the Video Recordings Act (VRA). It considers the public Parliamentary debates about the VRA, and places them alongside private correspondence between the Home Office and the BBFC, and internal BBFC material from the recently catalogued James Ferman papers held at the BFI. As well as exploring the introduction of the VRA, this article also aims to briefly consider its implications for the BBFC, how they set about interpreting and implementing its stringent recommendations and how this impacted upon the organisational working practices of the Board. While the VRA was without doubt one of the most significant pieces of legislation within the history of film regulation in Britain, the time is ripe for its reappraisal and with it a re-evaluation of the role played by the BBFC in securing statutory regulatory powers.     

Prejudices Unshelved: Variation in Attitudes toward Controversial Public Library Materials in the General Social Survey, 1972–2014

Using the General Social Survey from 1972–2014, we examine variation in attitudes toward retaining controversial materials in libraries. Previously controversial topics have become much more widely accepted. We find that other controversies remain, showing how global conflicts become intertwined in local cultural controversies, and how the perceived threat from particular groups informs public concern with disseminating information from those groups. We find that more frequent library users are somewhat less likely to want to remove controversial books from the shelves, although some of these relationships are explained by variation in the respondent’s age, race, and other characteristics.     

Turning Polemics into Pedagogy: Teaching about Censorship in Art Education

In recent decades, the field of art education has seen an increasing interest in issues of social justice and social reconstruction which has led to pre‐service art educators often being encouraged to include potentially controversial topics in their pedagogy. Surprisingly, however, there seems to have been little concurrent discussion concerning the inherent risks involved in introducing polemical themes within the classroom. Indeed, despite its obvious importance, the subject of censorship is often given little attention in art education circles, save for when it has already become an active problem, such as when an instructor is accused of censorship by a student, or when forces outside the classroom seek to involve themselves in pedagogical decisions. In this article, I describe my experience creating and implementing an undergraduate pre‐service art education course on the subject of censorship. I begin by examining my students’ reactions to some of the themes explored, and then explain how discussing cases of art censorship and controversy can serve as a platform for introducing students to the key role that context plays in how we perceive, value and react to artworks. Finally, I make the argument that by including censorship as a subject within their curriculum, teachers can help students better to navigate the psychological, moral and ethical complexities of contemporary art making.     

略述宋代的禁书

两宋时期是中国古代学术文化繁荣昌盛的时代,但这并没有使统治阶级放松对违禁书籍的审查和限禁,而是在前代的基础上,进一步加大了对禁书的查禁范围和打击力度,体现出鲜明的时代特点。尽管此举在一定程度上不利于学术文化的发展与传承,但在总体上对规范宋代图书市场,净化民情风俗和学术、教育环境,进而加强宋朝统治方面,都发挥了积极的作用。     

Does the Great Firewall Really Isolate the Chinese? Integrating Access Blockage With Cultural Factors to Explain Web User Behavior

The dominant understanding of Internet censorship posits that blocking access to foreign-based websites creates isolated communities of Internet users. We question this discourse for its assumption that if given access people would use all websites. We develop a conceptual framework that integrates access blockage with social structures to explain Web users’ choices, and argue that users visit websites they find culturally proximate and that access blockage matters only when such sites are blocked. We examine the case of China, where online blockage is notoriously comprehensive, and compare Chinese Web usage patterns with those elsewhere. Analyzing audience traffic among the 1000 most visited websites, we find that websites cluster according to language and geography. Chinese websites constitute one cluster, which resembles other such geolinguistic clusters in terms of both its composition and its degree of isolation. Our sociological investigation reveals a greater role of cultural proximity than access blockage in explaining online behaviors.     

Perspectives on the right to publish: Globalinequalities, digital publications, and thelegacy of revolutionary France

By 1789 the French Enlightenment had alreadyestablished that the rights of citizensincluded the right to speak, write, and printfreely. This right has since been enshrined invarious national and international documents,but remains elusive in much of the world. Oneway to consider these freedoms is to look notjust across the world comparing nations thathave or don't have freedom, but back throughtime at the first effort to promulgate thesenew rights – the French Revolution. When theFrench Revolution created freedom of the pressin 1789, the French book publishing industrywas noted for five attributes: completecensorship of all publications, a rigidlyenforced printing monopoly, copyrightprotection for all authors, fossilized content,and the proliferation of illegal presses. Digital technology is enabling a second dawn ofpress freedoms, but the five problems found inFrance two centuries ago can still be seen invarious forms, especially in the massivemonopoly of book publishing by a few countries. The answers created by France in 1810 present apartial basis for how current governments couldrespond to contemporary problems with freedomof the press. Rightly used, new digitaltechnology also has an opportunity to finallyfacilitate one of civilization's fundamentalfreedoms.     

略述宋代的禁书

两宋时期是中国古代学术文化繁荣昌盛的时代,但这并没有使统治阶级放松对违禁书籍的审查和限禁,而是在前代的基础上,进一步加大了对禁书的查禁范围和打击力度,体现出鲜明的时代特点。尽管此举在一定程度上不利于学术文化的发展与传承,但在总体上对规范宋代图书市场,净化民情风俗和学术、教育环境,进而加强宋朝统治方面,都发挥了积极的作用。     

基于专利申请及审查制度的专利引文评价效能实证研究

[目的/意义]研究专利申请及审查制度下的专利引文作用机理,厘清专利引文评价效能,是保证学术评估客观合理的重要前提。[方法/过程]以美、中、日三国诉讼专利和许可专利为实证样本,分析专利引文频次与专利价值的相关性,并结合专利申请和专利审查制度就专利引文对施引专利、被引专利的评价效能进行深入剖析。[结果/结论]专利引文频次对专利价值而言是一个正向、负向、中性混杂的评价指标,专利引文对专利价值的评价需建立在对引用动机、引文扮演角色和实际发挥作用等诸多要素的深入细致分析上,否则,专利引文对专利价值不具有客观的评价效能。     

黑洞热力学第三定律与宇宙监督假设

对黑洞视界的研究结果表明 :黑洞热力学第三定律可禁止裸奇性的出现 ;反之 ,裸奇性的出现必破坏黑洞热力学第三定律。由此推断宇宙监督假设就是黑洞热力学第三定律。     

Approval and disapproval of textbooks in the late Ottoman Empire

During the rapidly changing political atmosphere of the 1910s, the practice of sanctioning scholastic knowledge began to be implemented in the yearly selection of textbooks due to political contingencies. The study shows the procedures of approval and disapproval practised by the Grand Council of Education and the Copyright and Translation Office through archival pursuit in the Ministry of Education. The basis of the research material is constituted by documents of the textbook selection commissions for approval and disapproval practices, and rejection petitions written by textbook authors, as well as the incorporation of supportive primary sources such as records of parliament sessions, and critical books and articles on education from the Second Constitutional Period (1908–1918). Tracing a path through the Ottoman archives, the study pursues the frictions between the authors and the Office in the political ambience of the period and exposes the inefficiency of modern bureaucratic units crippled by favouritism and corruption. Thus, it reveals that the well-organised curricula and guidelines in modern schooling did not always yield uniformity. It contributes to questioning the overemphasised impact of modernisation of education, which is often associated with a smooth progression in the history of education literature.