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Abstract

This paper attempts to make sense of recent debates concerning broadcast media self-regulation of sex and nudity. It focuses on a period in mid-1998 when Sex/Life disappeared from Australian TV screens. Specifically, it tracks a ‘moral panic’ in progress at the time the Ten Network announced its decision to cancel this program. It describes and summarises findings of a quantitative analysis of the editorial content of 17 Australian newspapers monitored in 1998 for references to media portrayal of sex and nudity. The particular role of The Australian in this panic is considered. Its quest for a popular national readership is highlighted and the question of media influence is raised. This report also contrasts the political responses to Sex/Life with more recent responses to Bay Watch and concludes with some speculative remarks about the economic impact of censorship and program classification regimes.

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The ‘Digital/Life’ Moral Panic

Abstract

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