William Hoggarth - Fact Sheet - Unit 1

Regulatory Bodies
Regulatory bodies are organisations that set and maintain the rules for particular
areas of media in which media products must follow. Regulatory bodies are used to
protect audiences from offensive and harmful content. The regulatory bodies that are
relevant to magazines are the IPSO and ASA, the IPSO regulates print media and
the ASA regulates advertisements.

IPSO
https://www.ipso.co.uk
The IPSO (Independent Press Standards
Organisation) was founded on 8th September
2014 and was made as a replacement for the
PCC which closed on the same day. They are
funded by the regulatory funding company which
is funded by its member publications. The IPSO
is the independent regulator for print media in the
UK and is in place to protect audiences from
offensive and harmful content and to “uphold a [high] standard of journalism”. The
IPSO is responsible for investigating complaints about printed and online media that
may breach the editor’s code of practice.

How They Do It
IPSO uses the Editor’s Code of Practice to “[set] the framework for the highest
professional standards that members of the press subscribing to the Independent
Press Standards Organisation have undertaken to maintain.”. The Editors Code
ensures that printed media products follow the rules as to not cause harm or offense
to audiences. It is the responsibility of the publishers to apply the Editorial code to
their products, both printed and online, and they must take care to have their
publishings checked by “all editorial staff and external contributors, including
non-journalists” to ensure that their work follows the Editor’s Code.
*Parts from this section have been directly quoted from the IPSO website.

Editor’s Code of Practice

Code Application

Accuracy
Press must take care to not publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or
images. If significant inaccuracies, misleading or distorted statements are found then
they must be corrected promptly and, when needed, an apology must be published.
Press must also be able to clearly distinguish comment, conjecture and fact.

For PCGAMER this means that they must not include any information or images
which are inaccurate, misleading or distorted, for example, they should avoid using
information or images about a game which are incorrect, misleading or distorted.
They can avoid this by checking the information and images or, in the case of
information surrounding a game, they can get confirmation from the game's
developers.

Privacy
The IPSO states that everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life,
home, physical and mental health and correspondence, this includes digital
communications. Editors are expected to be able to justify intrusions into any
individual's private life without their consent. It is unacceptable to photograph
individuals without their consent in public and private spaces where there is a
reasonable expectation of privacy.

For PCGAMER this means that they would avoid using private information in text or
images, for example private information relating to game developers or anyone.
PCGAMER would also avoid taking photographs of people in public or private
spaces where there is an expectation of privacy.

Discrimination
Press must avoid prejudicial references to peoples race, colour, sex, gender identity,
sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability. The listed things must be
avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

For PCGAMER this would mean they would have to avoid including anything
negative about race, colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or
mental illness or disability when referring to people, for example game developers,
unless it is necessary for the article to do so.

Judgement
*There are no rulings for PCGAMER by the IPSO so instead a ruling from a different
magazine has been used.
The article which is complained about was published by Take A Break on 22nd
January 2015. The article allegedly broke codes 2 (opportunity to reply) and 3
(privacy). The article is based on an interview with the complainants former partner
where said that the complainant had also been romantically involved with another
woman. The complainant had said that the article broke clause 2 as he had not been
given an opportunity to comment on the story prior to publication. The complainant
also objected to 2 photographs of him used in the article as he said that the
publishers had not obtained permission.
The complaint was not upheld as clause 2 doesn’t require comment before
publication and the photographs had been given by the complainant's partner and
the photographs were taken in public with consent, meaning the publication did not
breach clause 3.

ASA
https://www.asa.org.uk

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)

was founded in 1962 and is the independent
regulatory body for advertisements in the UK
and is independent of both the government
and marketing businesses. The ASA is responsible for responding to complaints
made by consumers and businesses and take action to ban ads that are misleading,
offensive, harmful or irresponsible. With CAP, the ASA helps support the
advertisement industry to make sure they get their ads right before they are
published. The ASA also checks across media to ensure they are following the rules,
they do this by “[Monitoring] ads in sectors where there are potential consumer
protection issues or where there are societal concerns about specific products.”

How They Do It
The areas that the ASA and the CAP Codes cover, as listed on the ASA website,
are: Press ads, Radio and TV ads, ads on the internet, ad claims on companies own
websites, commercial e-mail and texts, posters/billboards, leaflets/brochures, ads at
the cinema, direct mail.
The ASA requires advertisers to hold evidence to prove the claims that they make
before they publish or broadcast the advert, this means that advertisers must be able
to prove that the claims they make are accurate and not false or misleading
otherwise the advert would have to be taken down. If an advert is found to have
broken the advertising codes then the ASA can force the advertiser to withdraw or
amend the advertisement. Advertisers cannot opt out of the advertising codes.
The ASA assesses complaints based of of their “prioritisation principles” where they
will:
– Consider what harm or detriment has or might occur
– Balance the risk of taking action versus inaction
– Consider the likely impact of intervention; and
– Consider what resources would be proportionate to the problem to be tackled

CAP Code
Code Application

Harm And Offence

Advertisements cannot include anything which can cause serious or widespread
offence. In particular care should be taken when referring to age, disability, gender,
gender reassignment, marriage, pregnancy, race, religion and sexual orientation.
They cannot condone or encourage violent or anti-social behaviour.
Advertisements also cannot cause fear or distress without a justifiable reason. If
there is a justifiable reason, it cannot be purely to attract attention.
References to anyone who is dead should be handled with particular care. The ASA
will judge the advertisement based on context, medium, audience and the product
being advertised.

For PCGAMER this means that the advertisements in the magazine should not
include anything that could cause offence. They would not include anything that
encourages violent or anti-social behavior, for example they might decide to exclude
adverts for violent games to avoid issues.
Misleading Advertising

*material information is information where the consumer needs to make an informed

decision in relation to the product.

Advertisements cannot mislead by leaving information out, hiding information or

presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible or ambiguous manner.
Obvious exaggerations and claims which the average consumer are unlikely to take
literally are allowed provided they don’t mislead. Adverts must not mislead by
omitting the identity of the marketer. They also cannot imply that expressions of
opinion are objective claims.

For PCGAMER this means that they would need to make sure that the advertisers
can prove any claims that they make in the advertisement, and that the
advertisement does not exclude any vital information and that exaggerations won’t
be taken seriously.

Privacy
Advertisements must not unfairly portray or refer to anyone in an adverse or
offensive way unless the person has given the marketer written permission to do so.
Marketers are urged to get written permission before:
– Referring to or portraying a member of the public or their possessions
– Referring to a person with a public profile
– Implying any personal approval of the advertised product.

To avoid issues PCGAMER would not include adverts which imply personal approval
of the magazine in the advertisements and would ensure that the advertisers had
gained the person's permission to include their approval in the advertisement. They
would also make sure the advertiser doesn’t portray people in an offensive manner
in the advertisement.

Judgement
*There are no rulings for a PCGAMER advert by the ASA so instead a ruling from a
different magazine advert has been used.
The magazine ad for Bulmers cider claimed that 2⁄3 drinkers prefer Bulmers cider.
The advert allegedly breached codes 3.1, 3.3, 3.7, 3.9 and 3.33 The complainants
challenged whether the claim was misleading. Bulmers said that the claim was
based on a survey and provided a copy of the study. The ASA claimed that the
sample size used was reasonable and there was enough evidence to prove the
claim, meaning the ad was not misleading.