NDM News: MEST 3 Essay on Blog

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

Due to the new development of new digital media there is an on-going argument on whether audiences have become more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Considering there are both advantaged and disadvantages to how powerful audiences are in terms of consumption and production. This has been highlighted by both Marxists and Pluralists who argue two different viewpoints on how the technological change that have influenced audiences. Where Marxists see the audience as passive consumers and highlight the failure of the “information revolution”, Pluralists argue that audiences now have a "culture of freedom" which enables them to be more active through new digital media. 

I believe just as the pluralist perspective that new digital media has given audiences the opportunity to “conform, accommodate or reject” (Gurevitch) through the means social media and other user-generated content. They argue that this has given audiences more power and control through the digital media the ever before. For example; social media has created new sources of information where people for all around the world are able to connect and express their opinions with one another due to the increase of globalisation. As a result this creates a new "culture of freedom" where the audience are no longer just consumers but prosumers through the means of YouTube where there is an on-going increase of user-generated content and citizen journalism blogs that allow audience to engage compared to when newspapers and the radio was the only source of information.

For example during the mass shooting in Vegas people both inside and outside were able to film what was going and constantly updating therefore, giving social media the immediacy that perhaps news channels don not have. User- generated content has had a large influence on the power shift between institutions and consumers which in today’s society is considered to be a positive. Furthermore, in some cases institutions depend on user generated content to support news stories when they publish which gives consumers a sense of familiarity.

Despite the positives of social media there are also negative aspects on how we gain information. Statistics show that “38% of UK pupils aged of 9-19 never question the accuracy of online information” (Livingstone/ Bober 2005). This highlights the power audience now have as we are now able to put up information without regulation. For example on Wikipedia people are able to "edit" and change information.

On the other hand, I also agree with the Marxists perspective to an extent. They argue that due to the hegemony in today's society, it has resulted into audiences being completely passive therefore, are unable to understand the constant news stories they consume. They debate that the so-called “information revolution” has done little to benefit audiences or to  established power structures in society reinforcing that audiences are in a cycle of passivity. The increase in pay walls has meant that consumers now have to subscribe  .This is supported by philosopher Alain De Botton who emphasised in his book the idea that we as audiences are unable to comprehend all the information given to us at once thus why we do not know what to consider important news. Marxists also argue that we are given a false representation of the news from gatekeepers who control the content that is presented on the news once, again reinforcing false representation.