Master's Theses

Department

Communication Studies

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Abstract

Obscenity, violence, and pornography have become a major concern of lawmakers, parents, Internet users, and providers. Each are concerned however for different reasons. This was a study of the levels of obscenity on the Internet. Through a comparative application of the 1936 Communications Act, the 1996 Communications Decency Act, and value of the material determined based on the Supreme Court LAPS test. Using "sex" as the search word, an Internet search through the Excite search engine was used resulting in over 455,000 possible sites. Fifty Internet web sites were chosen at random and studied Results indicate 64% of the sites contained obscenity, but only 21.88% of these sites contained any educational, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as described in the LAPS test.

Keywords

Communication

Advisor

Willis M. Watt

Date of Award

Spring 1997

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Rights

© The Author(s)

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