The development of new/digital media means
the audiences is more powerful in terms of consumption and production.
A Marxist perspective would argue that the
so called ‘information revolution” has done little to benefit audiences or to
subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a ‘great
leveller’ (krotoski), 2012) as many have claimed it has merely helped to
reinforce the statue quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news
website in the UK by a considerable margin is the ‘mail online’, which receives
more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly – with
forecasts that it will make £100 million or more in digital revenues in the
next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a
conservative, right wing perspective on key issues around gender, sexuality and
race and audience s appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist,
Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one their chief columnists jane moyer
wrote a homophobic about the death of Stephan gately in 2009, there were
twitter and facebook protests but ultimately they did not change the editorial
direction of the gate keepers controlling the newspaper.
In a pluralists perspective they believe
that everyone should be equal they believe that everyone should be equal and
should have the freedom of speech. It allows them to have more than one view in
society. This backs up Gunevitches as he states that something can be able to ‘conform,
accommodate or reject’ giving society choice and then being autonomous through
having this freedom people are now able to search and obtain information
through the new and digital media source called the internet. As well as
gaining information audiences are able to post up their beliefs and views
Marxists would agree with a theorist named Andrew keens where ‘a million
monkeys typing nonsense’ and causing people to be dumbed down. An example of a
society being autonomous is during the Arab spring. Where audiences on social
networks were able to communicate and bring down leaders where everyone found
out about what was going to happen by others sharing posts and USG (user
generated content) this supports the two step flow theory. This is due to one
person organizing an event (or a group of people) so others are able to like,
share and join.
From a Marxists perspective they believe
that new and digital media has not empowered audiences in any way. They do not
believe that they have the freedom of speech but are controlled by opinion
leaders and major institutions ‘a million monkeys’ – Andrew keens. They’d be in
favor of this quote, as Marxists believe that audiences are being dumbed down.
For example, buzzfeed has introduced a new form of delivering news of pointless
subjects like ’top 10 people who shouldn’t design cakes’.
Due to new and digital media people have no
become more powerful as pluralists argue. Due to the internet and new
technology becoming more affordable and becoming easier to use, people can
access information at their fingertips. This is empowerment as they are able to
consume information either formed by professional people like journalists or
either an ordinary person. We call this ordinary person a citizen journalist.
Anyone can become a citizen journalist by simply signing up to their own blog
which they own and are able to post what they like, weather they want to
challenge any person, information or news, they are able to do so. Some of
these people that consumer information and produce anything that could be
posted online is called a prosumer, due to them producing and consuming at the
same time. Pluralists believe that their society have choice and are able to
choose what they would like to watch what they would like to believe on
whatever they see on the internet. This is the society being autonomous making
their own decisions.
A Marxist would however disagree. This is
because they believe that audiences do not have a choice and are under control
by the big institutions such as google. Google is one of the worlds market
leaders in search engines, they are one of the most visited websites in the
world. They also own a lot of other segments for example, they produce their
own tablets phones, and other websites. Marxists believe in lin and websters
theory where ‘ top 5% of all websites accounted for almost 75% of user volume’
meaning they have very big audiences which visit their websites on daily basis.
Marxists would argue that in a pluralist society are fooled into thinking that
they have choice and are able to do as they wish. For example, a person who
opens up a blog would believe that they are not in any way under control by
these big institutions, but the fact is that these big institutions own most of
the worlds most visited websites. Google owns the blogger website. There for they can easily influence
those who have signed up to their website.
In conclusion I believe that the new and
digital media has empowered audiences to a certain extent. We now have citizen
journalists for example who can produce their own news and who can have a big
audience. We also have more user-generated content which is important as it
prevents from big institutions from twisting stories. So I do believe that new
and digital media has empowered audiences to a certain extend.
