Media Essay + LR

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.

Things to discuss:

• ·         Marxist and pluralist view
• ·         Hegemony
• ·         Citizen journalism
• ·         Pay-walls and decline in newspaper industry
• ·         Social media platforms such as Google

Over the years, the technological advancement in society has changed the way audiences consume the everyday media. Those changes have fundamentally altered the relationship between audiences and institutions in terms of the production and consumption of media products. Through my case study on the impact of new and digital media on the news industry, there are undoubtedly many examples of how audiences have been significantly empowered in terms of consuming and indeed producing media texts. However, while it is true that audiences can consume the news in more places and through more devices than ever (and even become citizen journalists themselves), there remains a significant debate regarding whether the powerful media institutions really have given up their power over audiences and society. This essay will explore this important question in more depth, examining how the news industry has changed beyond all recognition in just 15 years.

A Marxist view is a thought of having a range of people with a figure of authority controlling the mass media. This could be political or even economical factor as the ones in power are the big co-operations and institutions. The idea of a ‘third face of power’, or ‘invisible power’ are the words used commonly to reflect the idea of Marxism. Capitalism is a result of the people who believe in the Marxist view. Society is seen to reflect and reinforce a dominance of ruling class ideas and values. This lead to Engels’s famous concern that ‘false consciousness’s would keep the working class from recognising and rejecting their oppression. Because of this way of thinking there came another term used for consumers and it is called the “passive audience”. This means the forms of media and ideologies consumed by audiences isn’t typically challenged by them or questioned at all.

There is also a believe that Marxism contains a social group that is known as the “controlling group”. Those categories of people are thought to be major finical institutions that keep a grip on the mass media to keep total control of the entire population through society. As said before this will also make the consumer passive to the subliminal messages injected into our brains by those big co-operations. Another theory that is close to this concept is the idea of Hegemony. This phrase reinforces the Marxist view as it justifies how news companies filter the news they don’t want to share, and they hand pick the stories they want us to see. This sort of means that the audiences have no power in terms of the news they consume, and they can’t do anything about it. However, some consumers have spotted that the news they are consuming isn’t all authentic after all, which is how the concept of fake news emerged into social media, this includes click bait sites etc.

Not at all like Marxists, Pluralists recommend there is no predominant decision class however various contending bunches with various interests. The proprietors don't specifically control the substance of the media, yet rather what shows up in the media is driven by the desires of purchasers. Groups of onlookers watch what they need to and don't watch what doesn't mirror their interests. In relation to the traditional media this takes another role in developing societies. One development is through digital technology which opened many opportunities for audience to express their power through the media. One angle of power that was blured over the years is the way of journalism. With the rise of portable digital smartphones anyone can take out the phone and become a journalist.

Respected Journalists concur that citizen news coverage is the gathering and announcing of data through online networking, social media platforms, and customary news outlets, either by non-conventional sources or general society. For instance, any one walking past an incident can take their phone out and start to record the event, later posting on social media then becoming viral is a form of new transfer which is journalism. Native news coverage has turned out to be progressively prominent with the ascent of advanced mobile phones. One of the first recorded forms of citizen journalism was most likely in 1963 during the shootings of president JFK.

Before the inventions of social media platforms such as twitter or the creations of smart phones, individuals bought their own independent camcorders to record events. At the point when President John F. Kennedy was murdered in 1963, Abraham Zapruder recorded the act of assassination with his old-fashioned motion camera. The recording, which demonstrated the shooting of Kennedy as his drove through Texas, would inevitably be seen around the country on all news outlets.

The issue for daily papers and their proprietors isn't that news has suddenly turned out to be unfashionable; it's that profiting out of news is demonstrating progressively difficult. The explanations behind the crumble in revenues are straightforward. For over a century daily papers controlled the news and advertisements, yet digital innovations have changed everything. Staples, for example, characterised publicising, property and vehicles went instantly on the web. Daily papers were too ease back to respond to this change, for example, eBay and Gumtree too over ways of selling.

As a result, newspapers needed to find a way to continue their profits some turned to the idea of Paywalls. This presented by various news organisations lately with an end goal to both put a value on the select papers or articles they created and to endeavour to replace lost daily paper flow. In the US, enormous brands, for example, The New York Times and The Washington Post have both battled with how to monetise article content on the web, however both have now implemented some degree of effective paywall models. The Washington Post presented its paywall in 2013 as they struggled with their online version of the paper for a few years. The New York Time took a similar approach however they had better luck digitally in receiving paying subscription members to access their content online. They currently have over 1 million subscribers.

News UK introduced a paywall for its news brands, including The Times and The Sunday Times in 2010, with The Sun following in 2013. While the strategy has been successful with 170,000 Times subscribers, the company abandoned The Sun’s paywall late in 2015, and announced plans to aggressively grow its digital platform in 2016. Of all media organisations with paywall or metered models, the Financial Times remains one of the most successful. Of a paid circulation of 720,000 in 2014, more than 500,000 were digital, up 20% on 2013. Half year figures for 2015 showed a year-on-year rise to 737,000 total circulation, with 520,000 digital subscribers.

Google's Influence in the Modern 21st Century Google is the fundamental web crawler that individuals utilize today. It is the web index that made the web as popular as it is right now. It allows to access mainstream sites, for example, YouTube and G-Mail, which interface us to others in ways never thought imaginable.

One reason why some industries and institutions are suffering from the success of Google is that they are losing out on the advertisement revue opportunities out there. Because the fact Google is the leading internet search engine with 70% of consumers using it opened offers to advertise companies on the search engine itself. This lead to lower revenues for news outlets generally in a short of amount of time. This is clear evidence on how the world has changed after the emerge of the internet. It has certainly changed the form and style an individual receives advertisements.


AL-FADHLI, Abdullah

Question: 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.

WWW: You’ve clearly done a lot of reading or research for this essay – loads of great statistics and plenty of reference to theory (Marxism and Pluralism in particular). You’ve also covered citizen journalism and paywalls – two other important aspects of our case study. 

EBI: However, you haven’t answered the question. In fact, if you read your first paragraph, it’s like being dropped into the middle of a random essay on Marxism. There’s no discussion of media, audience power, consumption and production until the end of the second paragraph. This section reads like you’ve done a lot of research on Marxism (a good thing) but you MUST focus on the essay question and write from scratch (e.g. some of the hegemony stuff from here: http://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/gramsci-and-hegemony/ - not a massive problem for this task as I wanted you to use the internet but if I’m picking up on it rather than reading your response to the question then that is going to hold you back in future).

Organisation and paragraph construction are two other areas to work on. Make sure you have a clear topic sentence at the start of every paragraph that uses the wording from the question (“consumption”; “production”; “audience”; “power”) and tells the reader what specific aspect the paragraph will be focusing on.

For citizen journalism, is the best example you can provide from 1963? What has that got to do with new/digital media? What about all the recent examples in America? Think about this!

Marxism and Pluralism aside, you are lacking theories. News Values, Alain de Botton, David Simon, Clay Shirky… loads here from our case study you could be using in an essay like this.

LR: Re-write your opening paragraph making sure you very clearly answer the question and lay out an argument. Also add an extra paragraph on one of the missing theories mentioned above. 

Then, create a list of key revision topics from our new/digital case study work this term based on your essay and feedback above. Revise these topics over Christmas for your January MEST3 Section B assessment.