Federal Communications Commission (FCC)A B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWwhich prized the private above the public, led
to pressures to deregulate broadcasting. The
FCC was persuaded that the broader and more
diverse market-place would ensure plurality of
opinion without regulation.
In Democracy Without Citizens: Media and
the Decay of American Politics (Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1989), Robert M. Entman voiced deep
scepticism about the idea of leaving controver-
sial matters in the hands of market forces. He
writes of the ‘dangers of basing public policy
on the assumption that the economic market
inevitably nourishes journalism’s contribution
to democratic citizenship’; indeed, ‘decisions
rooted in this premise, as the FCC’s elimination
of the Fairness Doctrine, might actually retard
progress towards a freer press and citizenship’.
See deregulation; privatization.
Fatwa On St Valentine’s Day 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah
Khomeini issued a ‘fatwa’, or edict, against the
British novelist Salman Rushdie for his novel
Satanic Verses (1988). The book was deemed
blasphemous, guilty of containing scenes so
insulting to the Islamic faith that every true
Moslem had a bounden duty to kill the author.
To carry out the fatwa would guarantee a place
in heaven. Rushdie went into hiding, with
police protection. Th e fatwa applied to all those
involved in the publication of the novel. Book-
shops were fi re-bombed. Th e Japanese translator
of the novel was attacked, beaten up and stabbed
to death and an Italian translator stabbed. Th e
Iranian government distanced itself from the
fatwa death sentence in 1998, without actually
withdrawing it offi cially. See censorship.
Fax See facsimile.
Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) Set up by the US federal government in
1934; a body empowered to regulate interstate
and foreign communications such as radio and
TV. Its eff ectiveness in the role of protector of
public sector broadcasting against the ambitions
and predatory intentions of the private sector
in the US has long been questioned. In ‘An
American view of UK terrestrial TV’, published
in Free Press, journal of the Campaign for Press
& Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF), July-August
2002 edition, American documentary-maker
and journalist Willams Rossa Cole states that US
government ‘regulation of content for the public
interest has diminished consistently over the
last decades’. He is of the view that the FCC ‘is
so passive in the realm of television content and
ownership that it might as well shut its doors to
save the taxpayer some money’.
He quotes the-then FCC chairman, Michaelplay a key role in providing feedback during
conversations. However, Argyle comments that
our awareness of what our facial expressions
may reveal often leads us to control them, and
that we can be quite successful in doing so. Th us
there may be diffi culties in accurately judging
emotional reactions from facial expressions
alone. Despite attempts to conceal our reactions,
leakage may occur, that is other non-verbal
behaviour, often in the lower half of the body,
may reveal our true reactions. For example,
whilst the face might be passive, a tapping foot
might indicate that we are agitated by a message.
A number of studies suggest that the facial
expressions used to convey these emotions are
to a large extent universal, thus they are found
across all human cultures. The cultural rules
concerning the display of facial expressions
may, however, vary. For example, Larry Samovar
and Richard Porter in Communication Between
Cultures (Wadsworth/Th omson Learning, 2004)
note that in Korean culture, too much smiling
can be interpreted as a sign of shallowness. See
communication, non-verbal.
▶Stella Ting-Toomey, Communicating Across
Cultures (Guildford Press, 1999); Allan and Barbara
Pease, Th e Defi nitive Book of Body Language (Orion,
2004).
Facsimile Exact copy; today, facsimile (or fax)
is the transmission of a printed or handwritten
page or image by electronic means. As early as
1842 Scotsman Alexander Bain proposed the
fi rst facsimile system, though it was not until the
1920s that the process was generally employed
for the transmission of news, photographs,
weather maps and maps for military purposes.
Newspaper editions can be transmitted across
continents for simultaneous publication; the
pictures of wanted criminals can be relayed
instantly to practically every police force in the
world, while the facsimile machine can combine
with the domestic TV receiver to provide a
permanent record of news and other items
appearing on the screen.
Faction See documentary.
Fade in Gradual emergence of a scene from black-
ness to clear, full defi nition. Th e term is used in
radio as well as fi lm and TV.
Fairness Doctrine (USA) A broadcast-
ing regulation in the US until 1987 when the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
responsible for its observation, abolished it. Th e
doctrine required broadcasters to devote time
to controversial issues and to air varied opposed
viewpoints. In the 1980s expansion in radio and
television channels, and a dominant ideology