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

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

New and digital media can be defined as a multimedia experience that audiences have access to. These can range from a variety of sites such as social networking sites like, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram as well as others such as online newspapers, videos, games, blogs and many more. There are two perspectives to this argument. The first is the Marxists approach. They emphasize the role of mass media in the reproduction of the status quo. Whereas, the second approach, pluralists, emphasize the role of the media in promoting freedom of speech. 

A Marxist perspective would argue that the so called "information revolution" has done little to benefit audiences or to subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a "great leveller" (Krotoski 2013) as many have claimed, it has helped to reinforce the status quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news website in the UK by a considerable margin is the 'Mail Online', which receives more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly - with forecasts that it will make $100 million or more in digital revenues in the next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a conservative, right-wing perspective on key issues around gender to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Mior, wrote a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately in 2009 there were twitter and Facebook protests but, ultimately, they did not change the editorial direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper.

Pluralism is perspective that argues that we live in a classless society and media organisations are responsive to an audience and are economically determined. The plural value of society, highlighted by Halloran, says that it enables audiences to ‘conform, accommodate, challenge or reject this. Furthermore, the uses and gratifications theory proposed by Blumer and Katz (1974) is associated with pluralism. It states that media audiences are active and make conscious choices about the way we consume media. They suggested that there are four main uses and gratifications that audiences get from the media. Diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.  Diversion is where we escape from everyday problems and routines. Personal Relationships are where we use the media for emotional and other interaction. Personal Identity is finding ourselves reflected in texts or learning behaviour and values from the media and surveillance is where  information that is useful to us e.g. the weather etc. In addition, as pluralists argue that audiences are free agents, examples of this are user generated content such as blogs, twitter, Facebook, instagram etc. We are able to be ourselves on these and not be influenced by dominant ideologies. Moreover, the news has been mutualised, "the mutualisation of news is a very powerful idea that particularly works for the Guardian, as our relationship with our readers is very strong. We can use the community of our readers in ways we would not have been able to in the past."

Another 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 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.

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 of to engage 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).

Facts show that 57% of 9-19 year olds had come into contact with pornographic material online (Tanya Brown). This creates an illusion of autonomy, making us believe that we are in power when in fact we are not, therefore under aged people having access to porn when they shouldn’t means they are creating this "illusion" of power.

In contrast, developments of new/digital media has made audience more powerful as they are now actively producing their own content on the internet and therefore have more freedom. Online blogs, forums, global information and social networking sites has increased self-expression for the audience which establishes that they are active consumers and therefore are powerful.  Through the developments of new/digital media “the web has the power to show people’s different views” (Kroteski 2012). It could be suggested that the audience are no longer passive as they can now actively challenging to dominate ideologies through social media. Significantly, “shared activity or crowdsourcing on the internet has enabled people to come together and to solve problems” (Wesch 2008). An example of this would be the 2011 Twitter campaign which caused thousands of citizens onto the streets of London to help clean the mess after the London riots. Thus, it can be argued that the development of new/digital media has empowered the audience. This is because; they can now actively produce content through social media which allows them to get their messages across to the public.

Whilst content analysis and semiotics may .shed light on media content, Marxist theory highlights the material conditions of media production and reception. 'Critical political economists' study the ownership and control of the media and the influence of media ownership on media content cannot be ignored. It also remains important to consider such issues as differential access and modes of interpretation which are shaped by socio-economic groupings. Marxist media research includes the analysis of representation in the mass media (e.g. political coverage or social groups) in order to reveal underlying ideologies. We still need such analyses: however oppositional it may sometimes be, audience interpretation continues to operate in relation to such content. Because of the distribution of power in society, some versions of reality have more influence than others.

People are being oppressed by the elite. They are dominating over them making them feel weak and less powerful (class domination). The public suffer from a false consciousness, they are not being aware of things due to them being influenced and manipulated by the capital. The public do what they are told as we do not ever question the power of relationships. Also, the capital are 'a minority of (media) producers always serve a majority of consumers' (Paretos law) and yet we still obey them, why is this? Due to power.