New and digital
media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences.
Consider how and
why media institutions are using these techniques (48)
New and digital media refers
to content available on-demand through the Internet, which is accessible on any digital device. Examples of new media include websites such as online newspapers, blogs, or
wikis, video games, and social media. New and digital media has had a huge impact on
audiences. This is due to the fact that audiences now have access to variety of
material online. Two case studies that
can link to this are the film industry and News.
Due to new and digital media,
newspapers have gone into a decline as, content is now shown online where
audiences are more likely to check up on the latest news than reading
newspapers that aren’t easily accessible. This then
causes there to be a competition for online news papers, as readers want quick
material they can access, thus newspapers are going to have to compete with
each other to achieve this. As Rupert Murdoch says ‘The world is changing and
newspapers have to adapt’. This nicely links to Galtung and Ruge’s news values
of immediacy. In addition, paywalls have been introduced to a few newspapers
such as The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch. This turned out to be a huge
success as the target audience in the demographics group is A, thus are likely to
pay. However, The Sun, also owned by Murdoch, tried to maintain their paywall
but failed as it audiences are working class people in the demographic group of C2, E and D, who are not will not pay for material they can read
elsewhere for free. Furthermore, due to this extreme change in trying to
compete with other online newspapers, it had lead to the death of The Independent
as they were too late in innovating – did not adapt, thus leading to a decline
in jobs.
Moreover, the article ‘News
on the tweet’, positively talks about how twitter has been used by news organisations
to reach audiences. This is beneficial for new papers as it allows them to connect
to different readers globally, with the help of globalisation. BBC has a
variety of accounts on Twitter such as BBC news, BBC world and many more and so
are able to connect to readers worldwide. Nowadays, audiences are more likely
to use social networking sites and so having published news on Twitter is
advantageous for them and are more likely to access material they can get
access to quickly. This can also link to
Galtung and Ruges’ news values; immediacy, which is a key quality members of
the public appreciate.
Furthermore, user generated content (UCG) is material created by members of the
public which has been uploaded online by them – citizen journalism. If huge
stories are uploaded to the internet, institutions are able to gain information
from the video and reproduce it in their own. Thus, reaching audiences. An
example of user generated content is Ian Tomlinson. Ian was just an ordinary man on his way back
from shopping. He walked into a crowd of protests, not realising what was going
on around him. The police thought he was a threat to them and so tackled him to
the floor and beat him with sticks. He eventually died. This was filmed on an individual’s
phone which then became viral and reached institutions, where they published it
in their newspapers. UGC is extremely advantageous as it allows audiences to see
the real story behind it, than false/inaccurate information news produces. Another
example of UCG is the iphone app; periscope. Journalist Bild, found a
way to use his smartphone to help those people tell their stories direct to
readers. Paul travelled with the Syrian refugees to their destination, Germany.
His broadcasts on the periscope app were live and often focused on refugees,
with several reappearing regularly to talk about their experience.
A Marxist perspective would argue that audiences are not
empowered through the development of new and digital media. As Marxists argue
that mass media are a tool used by the ruling bodies/elite that reinforce this
statement made by Gramsci who used the concept of hegemony to describe the
dominance of one social class over another e.g. the ruling class. Furthermore,
Chompsky's theory also stems from this hegemonic view as he talks about
'manufacturing consent ‘and the ruling class brainwashing people into believing
that something is 'natural or common sense' (hypodermic needle model). In
addition, the global village promoted dominant ideologies and some can argue
that whether this is good or bad, focusing particularly on Americanisation and
Western ideologies is new and digital
media becoming more diverse or re more cultures being subordinated by
Americanisation. This links well with major media conglomorance such as Google
with 50 billion revenues, Facebook with 5 billion and New Corporation with
33 billion.
The internet is known as the most important medium of the
century (Briggs and Burke). From a pluralist perspective, audiences are seen as
free agents. They are not influenced by dominant ideologies. They argue that
"The internet has given readers much more power...The world is changing
and newspapers have to adapt" (Rupert Murdoch, Newscorp). This suggests
that audiences are at an advantage due to new and digital media as they are
able to access a variety of information as well as produce their own material
online e.g on blogs - giving them the power.
However, Andrew Keen (Marxisit) says that "Web pages
and blogs are like a million of monkeys typing nonsense", arguing that the
information that we produce is false and inaccurate compared to the dominant
ideologies and that we are better off engaging into material uploaded by them.
This links to the statistic that '38% of UK pupils aged 9 to 19 never question
the accuracy of online information' (Livingstone/Bober 2005).
Institutions can also reach audiences through the film industry. New and digital media has changed the way the
film industry produces texts as they are now available online for free.
Consumers would rather watch something for free than go to cinemas and pay a
fortune to watch a movie. Also, movies can be downloaded online and some are
produced in HD which is advantageous for the audience. Furthermore, we are able
to watch movies on our phones and tablets (on the go if WiFi is available).
In
addition, the film industry distributes
their product in many ways. For example, on Netflix audiences can watch the
movie at home for a cheaper price. Also, texts are published on DVD and blu-ray
to have a variety of audiences watching it as some may not have blu-ray but
then they are able to watch on it DVD. Due to new and digital media, the film
industry are publishing films on a variety of platforms to allow more people to
watch the movie at a cheap price rather than for free. So for example with The
Martian, the movie has been published on DVD, Blu-ray, Netflix and other sites.
In conclusion, institutions have a variety of techniques in
reaching audiences. This is done through user generated content like citizen
journalism, where institutions are able to gain
information from the video and reproduce it in their own, social
networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.