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.

Social Media has enabled the audience to have a certain amount of authority it once never had. However derivatives of the social media have been constructed by the elite nations.


Social Media has contributed to the power of the audience, by allowing users to have more flexibilty to express their views and opinions. However another argument supports hegemonic perspective of elite nations influencing the majority of the public.

The Pluralist view has exposed how people of the elite nations have been put to shame by the power of the user. an example of this is the phone hacking scandal in which Rupert Murdoch was exposed and social media was used to amplify to expose his intentions.

The statement of Al Gore "The internet is an empowering tool...an exciting and revolutionary prospect" supports the increase in  citizen journalism which has allowed individuals to provide their own news stories. This has only been made possible by developments in technology. Examples of this include UGC by those who witnessed the attack of British Army Soldier Lee Rigby. In which the UGC gained immense amount of hits on Youtube and Vimeo that helped gather awareness for the topic.

The statement by Murdoch “The Internet has given readers much more power… The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt” supports the pluralist view of how consumers are given power by the developments in technology. The internet gives the consumers more pwer than ever to interact with people from other audiences. An example of this could be a comment section of the blog where people are allowed to comment and share their opinions and by this they can influence other people. If the comment is very popular or has a very distinct and powerful view the elite nations may take this into consideration and may change or alter the content that is put out by them. This can also be linked to Todorrovs theory in which an equilbrium is broken as a disequilibrium is formed and then there is a new equalibrium.

Livingston and Bober (2005) who say “38% of UK pupils aged 9-19 never question the accuracy of online information” showing that the views of the elite class will be showcased to younger generation regardless of the platform they are accessed through. The statistic by Lin and Webster “ top 5% of all websites accounted for almost 75% of user volume” meaning that despite the vast variety of resources available online to access news, it is still selected by the elite class.

Due to the developments in the production and consumption of media the Marxist view is that of  the elite and controlling class will always in control. This is evident through the change of news being accessed via word of mouth to a newspaper lead to the controlling class quickly jumping ‘on the bandwagon’ and harnessing the opportunity of providing their biased views to the masses. This is still reminiscent in the current newspapers today of which some take slanted and biased view which has been inherited. This is due to the relentless submission of the elite classes’ views onto the founder’s younger self of paper which is then precipitated down into the newspaper and its readers who adopt the view of the elite class.

In conclusion, I believe that despite the facts of the Marxist view that new and digital media is another platform for the elite class to assert their power and influence on, new and digital media developments such as the internet have made consumers more powerful than ever as they can post their own opinions online from which they can influnece a wide amount of people. This has been showed evident from  user generated content and online blogs from which users gain more popularity than some elite nations.