Section B

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).

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.