POLITICAL-IDEOLOGY AND ATTITUDES TOWARD CENSORSHIP

A modified form of the Attitudes Toward Censorship Questionnaire (Hens e & Wright, 1992) was developed to assess the degree to which that sca le measures attitudes toward censorship in general as opposed to censo rship of material representing particular sociopolitical values. The r evised form characterized the potentially censorable materials as raci st, sexist, or violent. University student respondents who showed high acceptance of censorship in this context scored high on measures of a uthoritarianism, political conservatism, and conventional family ideol ogy (as had procensorship respondents on the Hense and Wright scale), but low on a scale of economic conservatism. Women were more favorably inclined toward censorship than men. Supporters of Canada's most left -wing (social democratic) major federal party were most favorable to c ensorship. Factor analysis showed that most of the variance could be e xplained by a cluster that we have labeled ''Politically Correct Purit anism'': support for censoring racist and sexist materials and depicti ons of sexual violence. The second major factor was related to commerc ial availability of such materials. Content-specific items on both the original and our modified scales may establish a context that guides the interpretation of nonspecific items, so that both the original Att itudes Toward Censorship Questionnaire and our modified version may be measuring attitudes toward censorship of materials violating a partic ular view of morality, rather than toward censorship in principle.