Question 2

What should be the primary objectives of a national classification scheme?

The key themes emerging from responses to this question were related to “adults” , “access’ , “parents”, “children”, ‘informed” and “consumers”. A distinction can be drawn from this image between what submitters thought should be available to adults, and setting limits to government censorship of their media and entertainment choices, and the requirements of parents in relation to the needs of children. This can be seen by the concept tree that forms from “adults” to concepts such as “freedom”, “government” and “censorship” on the one hand, and from “children” to “protect”, “violence”, “offensive” and “illegal” on the other.

There was a role identified for classification in enabling parents to make informed choices for their children, as suggested by the cluster of themes at the bottom left of the infographic. This was for many a different issue to that of what adults should have access to. Again, “games”, “R18” and “ratings” all featured prominently, and were clustered together.