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Recommendation 996 (1984)
Council of Europe work relating to the media
The Assembly,
1. Having noted the resolutions on culture and communications
technology, and on the distribution of video-cassettes portraying
violence and brutality, adopted by the European Ministers responsible
for Cultural Affairs in Berlin in May 1984 ;
2. Sharing the ministers' view that "technological innovation,
with all the opportunities and dangers it entails, is producing
fundamental changes in communication networks, making communications
a major vehicle of further economic and cultural development and
greater mutual understanding" ;
3. Aware also of "the need to preserve and develop local, regional
and national cultural identities at a time when frontiers are being
opened up and production systems are being reorganised as a consequence
of the introduction of new technologies" ;
4. Recalling its Recommendation
963 (1983)
, on cultural and educational means of reducing violence,
and
5. Recommendation
964 (1983), on a European award for non-violence, and
welcoming the fact that the ministers in Berlin were equally concerned
with media violence ;
6. Noting that the ministers for culture meeting within the
Council of the European Communities in Luxembourg in June 1984 placed
very similar emphasis on the need for concerted European action
in the media field ;
7. Noting also the proposals made by the European Parliament
in its resolution on the market of violent and horrific video-cassettes
;
8. In consequence therefore regretting all the more the over-cautious
response of the Committee of Ministers to Recommendations 963 and
964, regarding the media,
9. Recommends that the Committee of Ministers reconsider this
response in the light of the positions adopted in Berlin and Luxembourg,
and on the basis of closer co-ordination of the thinking of the
Steering Committee for the Mass Media and of the Council for Cultural
Co-operation ;
10. Supports the request of the ministers in Berlin for an intensification
of co-operation between Council of Europe member states, and stresses
in particular the need for action relating to :
a. the production and distribution of European programmes ;
b. copyright and other legal questions relating to the media ;
c. the quality of programme content and measures to regulate the distribution of video-cassettes portraying violence and brutality likely to have a pernicious influence on children and adolescents.