A pluralist
prospective would argue that the audience have much more control over the
internet because of the advancements made in new/digital media. They would
argue that the audience are the producers and we don’t have to rely on big conglomerates
to give us the information, as we are producing it and getting it from ordinary
people. The advancements in new/digital
media has made ordinary people active consumers, as they are producing their
own content. “The internet is an empowering tool” (Al Gore), he quotes that the
internet is an empowering tool, as it is allowing normal people to create
content, which could be accessed by anyone around the world. One example of
ordinary people being producers and how it helped spot out the wrong is the
Rodney King case. A normal citizen recorded the incident on his mobile phone
camera and published it everywhere, available for the audience. People who do
such things are referred to citizen journalists, as they are giving out the
important information for free. This shows that the new/digital media has gone
much more advanced as it is letting normal people do such things.
On the
other hand a Marxists would argue that even though ordinary people are creating
the content, who is getting the money for it? At the end of the day it is the
multi money making conglomerates that are getting all the revenue created from
the content which is produced by ordinary people. So they would argue that producing all the
content and giving it out, but not getting any revenue from it means you are
still not in control over the internet. It will still be the big media institutions
who will be getting all the revenue. One of the biggest media institution, News
Corporation still charge for the online content because they know that people
would still buy it even though they charge £8.67 each month. Why do they pay
for the content when they know that they could get the information from other
sources, the reason why they pay for it is because they trust the source. “A minority of media producers always serve a
majority of consumers” ( Pareto’s Law) The reason why this would support a
Marxists prospective is because it says a small amount of media producers
always serve the big amount of consumers. So it suggests that it is still the
media producers/ institutions that are still in charge of what to be shown to
the audience. This connotes that a Marxists would strongly disagree with the
point that the audience have much more power over the internet.
To tackle
the Marxists argument another pluralists prospective would argue the audience
are in power over the internet because that’s the reason why YouTube is so
successful today. The reason why YouTube
is so successful today is because of (UGC) user generated content. Ordinary people are creating content and
posting it up on YouTube, which allows them to get views and generate money. One
example of UGC is SourceFed which is a YouTube channel. They post up 5 videos about the main news of
the day, but they would make it much more simply and smaller so that the young
age can enjoy it. This is a perfect example for UGC because its ordinary people
creating this and they are giving the news out for free. This also suggests
that new/digital media allow them to do this, which means the advancements in
new and digital media has given power to the audience. “The internet has given
readers much more power, the world is changing and newspapers have to adapt”
(Rupert Murdoch) Him as a multi billionaire has quoted that the world is
changing. The reason why he says newspapers have to adapt is because things
like SourceFed are giving out news for free, which means people won’t buy
newspapers. That’s why he says the worlds changing newspapers have adapt.
A Marxists would
strongly disagree with the fact that the audience have power over the internet
because the media institutions just “inject the audience with the information”
(hypodermic needle) they don’t allow the audience to give their opinion they
just inject them with all the information they have. They don’t even allow the
audience to think. The people who decide what information has to be shown are
gatekeepers. They are the ones who make the decision on whether something
should be shown to the audience or not. Marxists say that they are still in
control in terms of production.
The advancements in new/digital media let the
Arab communicate with each other so that could receive freedom. Arab spring is a
perfect example for pluralists as you could argue that it let them raise their
voice. People in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are now able to see who they
actually are, and they can identify their personal identity. If the new and
digital media did not allow people in them countries connect then they would
have been all unemployed, they would have no right, they would have been
controlled by the government throughout their life. The internet let them raise
their voice and let them stand out and speak for themselves.
According
to a Marxists perspective the audience do not have power over the internet. This
is because in reality shows such as Big Brother, individuals are in control by
the surveillance cameras. Highlighting they do not have full control of their
behaviour. This establishes that the audience have less power in terms of consumption
and productions. They camera is controlling all the individuals on the show,
which means that they are in less power of themselves. This means that the
internet has not given full control of itself to the audience.
I believe that
audience have much more power over the internet, due to UGC and citizen
journalists. Ordinary people are creating their own content which they then
distribute around the whole of social networking sites. They have the power to
produce something and then the power to make it viral. Even though it doesn’t get
them any money, I still strongly believe that the audience are controlling the
internet. We don’t have to wait for media institutions to feed us the news
because we as ordinary people are creating the news. “The internet is the most
important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke) they believe that
the internet is a part of everyone’s life in today’s generation.
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