Marxism & Pluralism - homework essay
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.
The new and digital media (NDM) has allowed for a variety of critics to analyse the effects such as Marxist and pluralist on the typical producer and consumer. Some argue that NDM especially the internet has allowed for a more empowered audience and producer yet others argue that it has instead enchained and restricted audiences even more than before.
exemplar paragraph:
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.
On taking a pluralist perspective, many would argue that the development of NDM does in turn make audiences more powerful. Gurevitch expressed how audiences have the power to "conform, accommodate or reject" what is provided to them by producers. This highlights that audiences are much more active in their consumption of the media and can thus also have alternative interpretations of the message the producer intents to give. A supporting reason that audiences are much more active in their consumption of the media is the uses and gratification theory. Audiences consume the media on the bases of what pleasures it gives them, for example audiences may consume the news duet o the prospect of surveillance and information, actively judging the content rather than being "drip fed ideologies" as Marxism suggests. A real life example of the power the audience can gain from the media by being an active audience they are is through the Arab Spring protests. In this various middle eastern countries such as Egypt, Tunisa and Libya raised their political opinions against their dictators in 2011. This occurrence was suggested to occur at the particlr time period due to the audiences access to social medias such as Facebook that provided the protesters with the power and a platform to organise themselves on. The social media platform gave he audience power to raise their voices in a particular climate o bring about change and lead to the fall of great dictators such as Gadafi. The user generated coverage allowed for citizen journalism on blogs to raise awareness about themselves and increase the potential democratization of the states leading to a "mutualisation of news" as Rushbriger suggests. This therefore highlights how the audiences are empowered to bring about change through their own production and selective consumption of the news.
The Marxist perspective also highlights the lack of credibility of what happens within the new and digital media thus suggesting that the audience isn't as powerful in their consumption. Andrew Keens states "web pages and blogs are like a million monkeys typing nonsense," suggesting that the production that occurs on the internet is nonsense and of no particular value, therefore the audience aren't producing anything that could empower them or anyone else. The quote also highlights that the audience consumes nonsense media so there isn't anything being produced that could possibly empower any audience. This belief complements the hypodermic needle model, suggesting that the audience is passive and is being injected with this nonsense production so have no control over the production and consumption of new and digital media. A real life example of this is the Arab Spring occurrence in which middle eastern countries tried to overthrow their dictators yet the outcome was even more negative than their initial situations - the protesters were ignorant and shared and consumed the protest material on Facebook passively without questioning the true outcome that could occur, this further reinforced a status quo. Another example of a passive audience and producer is the fake news stories that arise from so called citizen journalism. Many fake news stories circulated the world in time for the American election, where many argue stories fixated the outcome of the election due to the passiveness and unquestioning audience who believed the things they read on the internet and acted upon those stories. This highlights that the audience can easily be manipulated and aren't capable of questioning the media they consume and produce thus suggesting that the new and digital media has allowed for audiences to be manipulated much more easily than ever before, as Briggs and Burke's suggested the internet is "the most important medium of the twentieth century."
However the quote by Briggs and Burke can be interpreted by a pluralist's perspective and instead suggest that the internet is a platform that has changed and revolutionized the way that media is produced and consumed. The internet has become the platform for rebellion as Keens's suggests, its empowers individuals to stand up against the establishment and have their various voices heard too. For example, twitter during the American elections was ablast with various different views and opinions on the electoral candidates, everyone was free to express themselves and they had the power to influence each other and discuss the various aspects. This is a form of democratization, such as the ability to sign online protests and have action taken and considered by the government, they audience has a strong say as a collective group. Rather like Castlles said its the "technological blossoming of the culture of freedom, individual innovation and entrepreneurialism." This "independence of state" the media has allows for a variety of production values and rules such as the BBC impartialness and the ITV's entertainment values. The BBC provided impartial and balanced coverage of the 2014 elections with the aim to satisfy the audiences need for information for surveillance and keep to their mission statement.
This variety of content of new and digital media isn't always empowering however. Instead it can be the cause of moral panic and do more harm than good. Research has brought forth some of the more negatives of the media, such as Tanya Byrons research who found that '57% of 9 - 19 year olds had come into contact with pornographic material online' which other psychological research has shown to have long term consequences for children. Porn is one of the many taboo subjects in our society, for a lot of positive reasons, but a rather unnerving piece of information to find out explaining why it would cause moral panic. This therefore highlights how negative information can be provided to audiences and how they are forced to consume certain media's against there will, therefore highlighting how the audience doesn't have much control over their consumption as much of it is automatically provided such as through pop up adverts and can cause an exposure to uncensored content.
A pluralist would argue that his lack of censorship is a great thing as it opens gates to a greater variety of facts and opinions that wouldn't have otherwise been available to the wider public allowing for a greater variety voices to be heard. Al Gore expresses "the internet is an empowering tool ... an exciting and revolutionary prospect," highlighting how the internet is now a tool for consumers to use to revolutionize the world we live in by helping to produce the content too. The internet is compared closely to the printing press revolution as it has empowered vast amounts of users to express themselves without anyone stopping them. Sites such as WikiLeaks etc. highlight government controversies and propaganda that would have otherwise been unavailable in the mainstream media. This therefore highlights how the internet has allowed for a platform where producers can express a variety of facts and opinions and audience can be empowered by this information.
However there is a vast amount of censorship that occurs. For example the various rules and regulations on social media that prevent complete freedom of expression, eg. twitter and Instagram ability to block certain key phrases and words from their feeds. There is further censorship in terms of the certificates given to movies. There are also further chaining elements of the NDM such as the breach of privacy of users so much so that "privacy may be an anomaly, now over" (Cerf, Google) as many reports have emerged on how much data mining and sharing across platforms occurs eg. Instagram and Facebook sharing users data across the two platforms or how the FBI head chief expresses his need to cover his webcam because of the potential breaches that could occur. Marxists would argue this is another way to drip feed audiences ideologies and control them through a new platform.
Overall there is a fact that the media is controlled by a small minority of producers (parato's law) - the top 5% of all websites account for the top 75% of user volume (lin and webster) therefore their are still many opinion leaders and powerful figures on NDM despite an increased possibility of empowered production and consumption for a wider audience range many seem to fall into echo chambers so don't actually have this exposure. Therefore audiences limit themselves and the potential ability to be more powerful in their production and consumption of content due to the established market leaders on the media platform, there is still a status quo that controls a fair amount of these audiences.
The new and digital media (NDM) has allowed for a variety of critics to analyse the effects such as Marxist and pluralist on the typical producer and consumer. Some argue that NDM especially the internet has allowed for a more empowered audience and producer yet others argue that it has instead enchained and restricted audiences even more than before.
exemplar paragraph:
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.
On taking a pluralist perspective, many would argue that the development of NDM does in turn make audiences more powerful. Gurevitch expressed how audiences have the power to "conform, accommodate or reject" what is provided to them by producers. This highlights that audiences are much more active in their consumption of the media and can thus also have alternative interpretations of the message the producer intents to give. A supporting reason that audiences are much more active in their consumption of the media is the uses and gratification theory. Audiences consume the media on the bases of what pleasures it gives them, for example audiences may consume the news duet o the prospect of surveillance and information, actively judging the content rather than being "drip fed ideologies" as Marxism suggests. A real life example of the power the audience can gain from the media by being an active audience they are is through the Arab Spring protests. In this various middle eastern countries such as Egypt, Tunisa and Libya raised their political opinions against their dictators in 2011. This occurrence was suggested to occur at the particlr time period due to the audiences access to social medias such as Facebook that provided the protesters with the power and a platform to organise themselves on. The social media platform gave he audience power to raise their voices in a particular climate o bring about change and lead to the fall of great dictators such as Gadafi. The user generated coverage allowed for citizen journalism on blogs to raise awareness about themselves and increase the potential democratization of the states leading to a "mutualisation of news" as Rushbriger suggests. This therefore highlights how the audiences are empowered to bring about change through their own production and selective consumption of the news.
The Marxist perspective also highlights the lack of credibility of what happens within the new and digital media thus suggesting that the audience isn't as powerful in their consumption. Andrew Keens states "web pages and blogs are like a million monkeys typing nonsense," suggesting that the production that occurs on the internet is nonsense and of no particular value, therefore the audience aren't producing anything that could empower them or anyone else. The quote also highlights that the audience consumes nonsense media so there isn't anything being produced that could possibly empower any audience. This belief complements the hypodermic needle model, suggesting that the audience is passive and is being injected with this nonsense production so have no control over the production and consumption of new and digital media. A real life example of this is the Arab Spring occurrence in which middle eastern countries tried to overthrow their dictators yet the outcome was even more negative than their initial situations - the protesters were ignorant and shared and consumed the protest material on Facebook passively without questioning the true outcome that could occur, this further reinforced a status quo. Another example of a passive audience and producer is the fake news stories that arise from so called citizen journalism. Many fake news stories circulated the world in time for the American election, where many argue stories fixated the outcome of the election due to the passiveness and unquestioning audience who believed the things they read on the internet and acted upon those stories. This highlights that the audience can easily be manipulated and aren't capable of questioning the media they consume and produce thus suggesting that the new and digital media has allowed for audiences to be manipulated much more easily than ever before, as Briggs and Burke's suggested the internet is "the most important medium of the twentieth century."
However the quote by Briggs and Burke can be interpreted by a pluralist's perspective and instead suggest that the internet is a platform that has changed and revolutionized the way that media is produced and consumed. The internet has become the platform for rebellion as Keens's suggests, its empowers individuals to stand up against the establishment and have their various voices heard too. For example, twitter during the American elections was ablast with various different views and opinions on the electoral candidates, everyone was free to express themselves and they had the power to influence each other and discuss the various aspects. This is a form of democratization, such as the ability to sign online protests and have action taken and considered by the government, they audience has a strong say as a collective group. Rather like Castlles said its the "technological blossoming of the culture of freedom, individual innovation and entrepreneurialism." This "independence of state" the media has allows for a variety of production values and rules such as the BBC impartialness and the ITV's entertainment values. The BBC provided impartial and balanced coverage of the 2014 elections with the aim to satisfy the audiences need for information for surveillance and keep to their mission statement.
This variety of content of new and digital media isn't always empowering however. Instead it can be the cause of moral panic and do more harm than good. Research has brought forth some of the more negatives of the media, such as Tanya Byrons research who found that '57% of 9 - 19 year olds had come into contact with pornographic material online' which other psychological research has shown to have long term consequences for children. Porn is one of the many taboo subjects in our society, for a lot of positive reasons, but a rather unnerving piece of information to find out explaining why it would cause moral panic. This therefore highlights how negative information can be provided to audiences and how they are forced to consume certain media's against there will, therefore highlighting how the audience doesn't have much control over their consumption as much of it is automatically provided such as through pop up adverts and can cause an exposure to uncensored content.
A pluralist would argue that his lack of censorship is a great thing as it opens gates to a greater variety of facts and opinions that wouldn't have otherwise been available to the wider public allowing for a greater variety voices to be heard. Al Gore expresses "the internet is an empowering tool ... an exciting and revolutionary prospect," highlighting how the internet is now a tool for consumers to use to revolutionize the world we live in by helping to produce the content too. The internet is compared closely to the printing press revolution as it has empowered vast amounts of users to express themselves without anyone stopping them. Sites such as WikiLeaks etc. highlight government controversies and propaganda that would have otherwise been unavailable in the mainstream media. This therefore highlights how the internet has allowed for a platform where producers can express a variety of facts and opinions and audience can be empowered by this information.
However there is a vast amount of censorship that occurs. For example the various rules and regulations on social media that prevent complete freedom of expression, eg. twitter and Instagram ability to block certain key phrases and words from their feeds. There is further censorship in terms of the certificates given to movies. There are also further chaining elements of the NDM such as the breach of privacy of users so much so that "privacy may be an anomaly, now over" (Cerf, Google) as many reports have emerged on how much data mining and sharing across platforms occurs eg. Instagram and Facebook sharing users data across the two platforms or how the FBI head chief expresses his need to cover his webcam because of the potential breaches that could occur. Marxists would argue this is another way to drip feed audiences ideologies and control them through a new platform.
Overall there is a fact that the media is controlled by a small minority of producers (parato's law) - the top 5% of all websites account for the top 75% of user volume (lin and webster) therefore their are still many opinion leaders and powerful figures on NDM despite an increased possibility of empowered production and consumption for a wider audience range many seem to fall into echo chambers so don't actually have this exposure. Therefore audiences limit themselves and the potential ability to be more powerful in their production and consumption of content due to the established market leaders on the media platform, there is still a status quo that controls a fair amount of these audiences.
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