Government Should Stay Out of the Ratings Game

by on December 11, 2007 · 0 comments

Today, CEI released a new paper by my colleague Eli Lehrer and me. The study, entitled Politically Determined Entertainment Ratings and How to Avoid Them, covers how we rate television, radio, comic books, movies, music, and video games. After studying the evolution of the ratings system for each medium, the report makes the following recommendations:

1. Keep politics out of ratings systems.
2. Know the medium being rated.
3. If a ratings system collapses, it is not a cause for concern.
4. Ratings systems will never substitute for other social institutions.

To check out a full copy of the report, visit CEI’s website. This report is especially important considering the renewed call for meddling with the ESRB system from Congressmen Baca (D-CA) and Wolf (R-VA). Check out more on that at Gamespot.

Thanks to GamePolitics.com for the awesome write-up on the report today and thanks to the readers as well for the 35 comments at the time of this post, all of which I read.

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Cord Blomquist / Cord Blomquist spends most of his time pining for the singularity. To pass the time while waiting for this convergence, he serves as the New Media Manager at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before landing this sweet gig, Cord hocked policy writing for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, toiled in the halls of Congress, and even worked in a crouton factory. In college, Cord spent his hours studying political philosophy and artificial intelligence, resulting in an unhealthy obsession with Lt. Commander Data. All of these activities will, of course, be viewed as laughable when he is ported from this crude meatspace into the nanobot cloud.

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