BBC research on taste and standards

The BBC has published the report of research conducted over the last year into public attitudes to morality, values and behaviour in UK broadcasting. One strand of the underpinning work was undertaken by Prof. Sonia Livingstone of the LSE Media Department.

The report detailed sixteen key findings, including the following:
- standards of morality, values and behaviour in the media in particular are
not a top-of-mind issue for the majority of the public.
- the BBC overall performs well in the audience's perceptions of standards
of morality, values and behaviour, compared; the audience also has higher expectations of the BBC.
- in general terms, the public do not want increased censorship or
regulation
- a significant proportion of the audience have various
concerns about standards of morality, values and behaviour in the media
as a whole, including newspapers, magazines, broadcasting and online
content.
- there is little public consensus or agreement about what constitutes
offence
- context in which potentially offensive content is placed is of
paramount importance to audiences
- sexual content on television and radio was a matter of relatively low
concern for audiences.

Inevitably, press coverage of the publication of the report focused on specific issues, including swearing and the 'Sachsgate' angle (1,2, 3)
* Commentoon sourced at: Women's eNews