Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies, 8th edition

Ofcom: Offi ce of Communications (UK)

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of Pablo Picasso (1891–1973) and mean not only

the items of his work – paintings, sculpture,

pottery – but also, by implication, the nature or

character of that work. See opus.

Ofcom: Offi ce of Communications (UK) A

‘super regulator’ born of the communications

act (uk), 2003, and assuming its responsibilities

on 29 December 2003; inherited the duties of

the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC),

the Independent Television Commission (ITC),

the Offi ce of Telecommunications (Oftel), the

Radio Authority and the Radio Communications

Agency.

Such issues as telephone silence calls, copy-

right infringement and broadband speed-up

are dealt with by Ofcom, which is a member of

the recently formed BEREC (Body of European

Regulators in Electronic Communications)

comprising twenty-seven regulators of the Euro-

pean Union, which held its inaugural meeting in

January 2010.

Ofcom has responsibilities across the spec-

trum of broadcasting and telecommunications in

Britain, and is required by statute to ‘further the

interests of citizens and consumers by promot-

ing competition and protecting consumers from

harm or offensive material’. Ofcom consults,

researches, produces codes and policies and

deals with complaints.

In May 2005 Ofcom published its Broadcasting

Code for television and radio. Th is acknowledges

Euro-Community directives relating to TV, and

incorporates aspects of the Human Rights Act

of 1998, in particular articles of the Convention

relating to the rights to freedom of expression,

thought, conscience and religion; personal

privacy; and freedom from discrimination.

Section One of the Code lays down broadcasting

benchmarks to protect the under-18s and deals

with programme scheduling; the coverage of

sexual and other off ences in the UK involving

under-18s; drugs, smoking, solvents and alcohol;

violence and dangerous behaviour; offensive

language; sex and nudity; and excorcism, the

occult and the paranormal.

Other sections of the Code deal with Harm

and Off ence; Crime (‘To ensure that material

likely to encourage and incite the commission of

crime or lead to disorder is not included in tele-

vision or radio services’); Religion; Impartiality

and Due Accuracy; Elections and Referendums;

Fairness (‘To ensure that broadcasters avoid

unjust or unfair treatment of individuals or orga-

nizations in programmes’); Privacy; Sponsorship

and Commercial References; and Other Matters.

Of key and regular interest to the press and

Object language According to Gail and Michele
Myers in Th e Dynamics of Human Communica-
tion (McGraw-Hill, 1985), this term refers to ‘the
meanings you attribute to objects with which
you surround yourself ’. Th ese objects might be
items of clothing, hairstyle, fashion accessories,
your house, your furniture, your car and so on;
and they may say something about you to others

• forming part of your self-presentation.
  The objects may not always convey to others
  the message you wish them to: people can be
  unaware of their symbolic value or simply read
  into them different meanings from the ones
  intended. And of course you yourself might not
  be conscious of the messages you are sending
  through the objects you possess.
  Object language can be particularly important
  when people are forming fi rst impressions of one
  another. A great deal of advertising certainly
  works on the assumption that consumer objects
  have as their main appeal a symbolic rather than
  a purely functional value.
  As Jib Fowles comments in Advertising and
  Popular Culture (Sage, 1996), ‘The individual
  looks at advertising imagery and the associated
  commodity in the attempt to fi nd those pleas-
  ing signs that will defi ne oneself in distinction
  to others. Still, those signs must be readable by
  others, so what the solitary consumer is buying
  is not so much self-definition in isolation as
  participatory symbols.’
  In their book Understanding and Sharing: An
  Introduction to Speech Communication (Brown,
  1979; reprinted 1985), authors Judy Cornelia
  Pearson, Paul Edward Nelson and Donald Yoder
  use the term objectics, the study of ‘clothing,
  adornments, hairstyles, cosmetics and other
  artefacts that we carry with us or possess’. Object
  language conveys information about our age,
  sex, status, role, personality, relationships with
  groups and with other people, psychological and
  emotional state, self-concept, and the ‘physical
  climate in which we live’. See communication,
  non-verbal (nvc); self-concept.
  Obscene signals See insult signals.
  Obsolescence Generally, anything passing out
  of date or out of use. In a communications
  sense, it refers to the link between social habits
  and media-using habits. Obsolescence can be
  defi ned as the abandoning of formerly institu-
  tionalized modes of conduct related to some
  established cultural activity.
  Oeuvre French for ‘work’, generally the complete
  works of an artist, writer, composer, etc. The
  word refers to the work of the mind as well as of
  hand and eye. Th us we may refer to the oeuvre