Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

To a certain extent audiences are empowered by these developments due to the fact that new/digital media has been accessed greatly by millions of people around the globe. Due to this people are able to have access to greater variety of views and values, and decide their opinions by looking at not one but several details. For example, the latest event of the missing Malaysian Plane has been going on for a long time and majority of the people are clueless. But when they want to be updated they look at the internet straight away, however they can make their minds up to what they’ll believe. For example, one site says the aliens have taken the plane, another says the pilot has done this on purpose and others saying it’s in the middle of the ocean near Australia. Look at different pages people have the option from looking at the variety of news and making up their views and values based on the diverse news pages they’ve identified.

As a result, audiences globally are able to access more texts and web.20 is continuing to grow. Web 2.0 allows audiences to become producers of the media texts. As a result of audiences being able to produce several media texts, they’re able to promote their own views and values. There are several of types of ways audiences do so such as creating their own blogs. An example of this is, Media Mcguffin where we are able to blog our work and become producers of our own media text. This supports Pluralism, as this is a society of competing groups and interests; none of them are predominant which means to present as the strongest elements. Therefore to a certain extent this goes for new/digital media. Audiences have been empowered by the capability to challenge organisations and get the truth out of circumstances where it wouldn’t necessarily been known to the public. Which Briggs and Burke state “The most important medium of the twentieth century”. A fine example of this is the ‘Arab Spring’ which was the revolutionary of protests, riots and civil wars in the Arab.  This is where North African countries fought to show the world how bad their governments where.

Media organisations are seen as enjoying an important degree of autonomy from the state, political parties and institutionalized pressure groups. Control of the media is in the hands of autonomous managerial elite who allow a considerable degree of flexibility to media professionals. It’s seen between media institutions and their audiences, as McQuail stated ‘the relationship is generally entered into voluntarily and on apparently equal terms.. and audience are seen as capable of manipulating the meida in an infinite variety of ways according to their prior needs and dispositions.’ This links with how audiences have been empowered by the capability to challenge organisations and get the truth out of circumstances where it wouldn’t be known to the public is Ian Tomlinson’s death.  This was said to believe in the eyes of the public that he died due to him collapsing and the first aiders not being able to help him. But the truth was that he was actually hit by a police officer and due to the hit he suffered a heart attack. The family have only been able to seek justice due to UGC from the audience’s. Therefore, this favours greatly McQuail’s statement as audiences are using the new/digital media to prior their needs and dispositions.

In contrast, Marxists view capitalist society as being one of class domination; the media are seen to promote hegemonic ideology and ensure the dominance of certain classes. Audiences still produce texts, but only with a certain view and the fact that they imitate media texts of the traditional media. This supports Marxists view as it basically suggests that he wants to emphasize the role of the mass media and keep the current power structure in the society as they are and not change it. Therefore, the world has to accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’.  As Marxists would argue user-generate comment creates an illusion that we have a free opinion. But our opinion is influenced and manipulated through varies of news content. Therefore, the audience are empowered by these developments. Paerto’s law states that “a minority of media producers always serve a majority of consumers”. This is evident as the social networking sites such as- YouTube allows users to create their own channels. Youtube home page consists of various channels with artists such as  Beyonce, Justin Bieber and Rhianna. Artists are only using these sites as a promotional vehicle. As, for example Justin Bieber was releasing his album in two months. But before this he was letting out a song every single week on YouTube to promote his album. Initially when the songs were over people would be obliged to buy the whole album. Marxists view was that the media have dumed down their output. As the views on youtube are for traditional media, as audiences are able to catch up on television.  ‘Burgess and Green’ say from the book of digital media that there are 2 Youtubes 1, a space where thse two categories which are traditional media and home video collide, but isn’t really coverage. The way media texts are being consumed are changing but people are still consuming some of the same traditional media without being aware.

To conclude, I strongly believe that there is a wide extent that the developments in new/digital media have a greater access to varieties of views and values. As new and digital media have provided loads of opportunities for businesses, people and celebrities to promote their act/field/video in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. However, things such as citizen journalism is impacting the way audiences have access as it’s challenging the professional journalists. As, when an event occurs you need to be at the best time and right place in order to witness and video it. That is then showed to millions through sites such as YouTube. James Murdoch said “The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision”. Which also relates to Marxists view. This allows audiences to innovate. As they’re able to publich whatever the want through their device. Therefore media institutions have to reconsider the information delivered to audiences with the aid of e-media platform. Such as social networking sites as it can help update information and audiences have varied sources of information they can choose from. Rather than relying on traditional media forms such as the newspapers. As Rupert Murdoch stated, “The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt.”