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.
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, 2012) as many have claimed, it has merely 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, sexuality and race and audiences appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Moir, 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.
The pluralist perspective suggests that new and digital media has empowered audiences in terms of media production and consumption. One reason for this is that audiences now, according to Gurevitch, have the power to "conform, accommodate or reject" the news on each individual's terms. This therefore shows that with regards to consumption, audiences have a choice about what they will and won't take into account when observing the news. Therefore, pluralists would be seen to agree with the two-step flow model, suggesting that audiences are active members of society when internalising media stories in contrast to the marxist view that they are passive and are influenced by the "hypodermic needle", instead. Audiences also fulfil their desire to observe surveillance and attain information regarding the world in which they live, fitting in well with Blumler & Katz's uses and gratifications theory. This means that they receive what they choose and therefore have control over media content. The phenomenon of UGC has also contributed to audience empowerment as they have the ability to produce content as part of citizen journalism. This means that they can take accountability for news that wouldn't have, otherwise, been broadcast by traditional media outlets. This is in addition to the fact that audiences can now be interactive with content, including that provided by traditional news institutions as they can take advantage of the opportunity to comment and share professional news stories. This supports Guardian editor Rusbridger's proposal that there is mutualisation of the news since both consumers and producers can contribute to creating and distributing the news to the mass audiences.
However, the hypodermic needle theory which supports the Marxist's view of new and digital media, suggests that audiences are injected with information and almost blindly accept any details they receive from the news whether that be via a television set or a print newspaper. This is supported by Tanya Byron's research regarding internet consumption by teenagers who found that 66% of teenagers do not question the validity and accuracy of what they read on the internet. This means that they wouldn't actually have any power to "accommodate and reject" but rather would only actually be able to "conform" to the way that society is, as a result of the agenda that news projects onto these audiences. This means that audiences cannot challenge the "status quo" and are force fed information which means that they actually have no power in society and are just misled and manipulated into thinking that they do. An example of this occurring in a real life instance is during the Arab Spring protests whereby inhabitants of North African countries such as Libya had tried to protest against corruption within their land, led by their political leaders. Although these protesters thought that they had developed themselves as a result of this protest, in actuality, their views were ignored and all that occurred was an uproar to make for a "good news story" since it was a negative story that people like to hear about yet don't actually internalise or take into account.
The pluralist would suggest that although some people may get ignored, there is still opportunity for people to reinforce their own freedom of speech by sharing it online via blogs and having like-minded people form a group in order to have their views listened to by at least a minority. However, this would work in favour of Pareto's law suggesting that the minority of producers serve the majority of consumers, leaving the minority of consumers who'd believe they can think for themselves, to be the only onlookers of the bloggers who actually consider and weigh-up their views.
However, Marxists would have it that, as Andrew Keen suggests, bloggers are being ignored and have been compared to "a million monkeys typing nonsense". This suggests that online activists are being actively mocked and ridiculed as opposed to be uplifted by the masses as their views aren't actually considered.
Overall, I personally believe that although the pluralists views are positive, they are more idealistic as opposed to realistic. Therefore, I think that people would like to think that they have freedom of speech, which they very well do. However, I think that this often gets ignored and overrided by the information provided by larger corporations due to the levels of trust and brand loyalty these firms have from consumers. This means that the marxist perspective, in my opinion is more in line with reality due to the social hierarchy and elite groups that exist and are influencing society as a whole. I believe that we are being controlled, monitored and manipulated which means that our "power" of consumption and production is extremely limited and restricted.
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