Classification changes: a quick fix, not the needed root and branch overhaul!

Prof. Elizabeth Handsley, President of Children and Media Australia

The Australian government recently announced some changes to the way the National Classification Scheme is to operate. These changes stop well short of the root-and-branch overhaul that is needed, if the NCS is to provide genuinely helpful information to consumers and families. CMA is disappointed to see that after 3 years of governments sitting on Neville Stevens’ review, the best this government can do is this bit of tinkering at the edges.

One of the NCS’s major flaws is the meaninglessness of its organising concept, ‘impact’. The impact of particular elements (violence, nudity, themes etc) is rated from ‘very mild’ (G) to ‘very high’ (RC, or Refused Classification) but it’s not tied to anything objective or evidence-based. If you want to decide whether a movie or game is suitable for a child in your care, the statement that it has ‘mild’ or ‘moderate’ impact violence, for example, will be of very limited use to you. In particular, the current impact-based system gives no indication of suitability for different groups of children under 15.

So when the government says it’s going to provide ‘consumer advice’ not just about the highest rated elements, but about other elements as well, all this means is more information, not better or more useful information. For example, at the moment you might get told about ‘strong violence’ (MA15+) if that’s the highest rated element, but under the changes you might also hear about ‘moderate blood and gore’ (M). Reports indicate that from now on, at the cinema, information will be provided about all classifiable elements – that is the impact of any violence, nudity, themes and so on – but if the information itself still all relates back to the meaningless category of impact, its proliferation is no improvement. It certainly doesn’t tell you whether the content is suitable for your 12 year old.

The Government’s proposed changes are said to be in response to the results of a survey, where participants said they wanted more information from the NCS. However that survey asked participants only whether they are aware of consumer advice and whether it is easy to understand, which are not the same thing as finding it useful. If it had asked about usefulness, a very different picture would have emerged. (As an aside, the survey did not test whether participants’ understandings are correct, either.)

The research also found that Australians don’t see a need for change to the classification categories (G, PG etc). On this it’s worth noting a couple of things: first, only a very small number of respondents were able even to name all the major categories unprompted – 18%. Then when prompted, only 72% were familiar with all the major categories. These findings at least raise questions as to how well-founded any views about the current categories might be. Second, the question didn’t give participants any alternative to the current categories. It would be asking a lot for ordinary people filling in a survey to imagine another set of categories than the ones they’ve lived with all their lives. If the survey had asked, for example, whether participants would like to have an age-based system, we cannot assume that the level of support for the current categories would have been anywhere near as high.

Survey results can only be part of the picture when we are deciding what a classification system should do. The very point of such a system is to provide information – that is, tell people what they don’t know. So there should be at least some recourse to the scientific research about the nexus between media consumption and children’s development and wellbeing; in fact CMA would suggest such knowledge should have prominence. There is little history of the NCS paying proper attention to such information, and little indication of plans to do so in future.

In summary, the changes look very much like a quick fix to appear to be doing something, and not the actions of a government that is really serious about providing for the needs of Australian children.