34 = B
WWW
- There are brilliant moments in this essay that are definitely at an A grade. However, as a whole we need a little more work...
EBI
- More focus on the question, you drift away from empowerment in places.
- Explore both sides: there's so much more you could say about the media's role in exposing corruption and challenging the establishment
- Definitely need more media theory and wider range of examples
- Consider institutional aspect and this impact on audiences (is quality reduced?)
LR
- Edit a few of your paragraphs, having read the examiner's report and copy them in to your blog post with this feedback
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Knowledge is power. In the light of this statement, global
access to a wide variety of views and values via new technological advancements
would surely empower an audience. However, with this great power comes a burden
of responsibility which producers of content may not willingly uphold with the
consideration of moral aspects of publicised content such as taste &
decency as well as the ethical cohesion of a media product. The stated issue
serves as one of the arguments which dispute claims of the prominence of new
& digital media in today’s ‘digital era’ being an empowering force for
audiences. While there are reasons for either side of the debate, the
empowerment of audiences by the functionality of new & digital media can be
simply deemed with accordance to the way in which the delivered product is
consumed and interpreted, thus stating that audiences are empowered to the
extent of their own understanding of new & digital media standards.
Liberalists will propose the wide range access to views and
values today as a revolutionary notion which is a form of positive change
empowering audiences. Accessibility is at its highest point today with the
intricate integration of platforms such as digital applications on smartphones
and even smart-watches, delivering news immediately alongside other content of
entertainment and information. Social media platforms on the internet such as
Twitter encourage people to voice their opinions publically and Twitter has
thus been repeatedly demonstrating a democratic system due to the absence of
censorship in user generated content on social media. Moreover, with the
introduction of Snapchat, audiences are consistently provided with live video
and audio coverage from not only their ‘friends’ but also news institutions
including DailyMail. This is positive as audiences are consistently learning
about their environment, which fundamentally makes a human being better adapted
to their living, consequently resulting in a large-scale society of highly
advanced humans. While this is idealistic, (assuming all content is valid and
beneficial) it is also noteworthy that exposure to political issues of race and
gender is higher today than ever, which becomes something less susceptible to
slander and disregard due to its profoundness in social debate. Due to this,
audiences of various demographics are seen to benefit from the widely
accessible content available on new and digital media.
However it is often forgotten that producers of content are
not always striving to report the truth, let alone issues of reliability.
British newspapers, inclusive of The Guardian and The Sun, are usually
representative of a particular political angle and will therefore report news
which benefits the party of favour. This was demonstrated during the General
Election of 2015 as segments of the UK press developed and distributed media
content in a way to exploitatively fuel their favoured political campaigns. The
curation of content is not only exclusive to this as it is inevitable for us to
communicate ideas of text, visuals and audio in a way that corresponds to our
own beliefs and motives. The concept of citizen journalism is more profound
than ever today with the rise of technology, enabling people to report video
and audio immediately to millions of people. This is found to be the case with
the ‘follow’ system on social media platforms including Instagram and Twitter
which grant the cyber presence of a user with the power of choosing which views
and values are shown to them, as well as encouraging many users to gain their
own followers so they can themselves present produced content in the form of
photos and tweets to a subscribed followership. Many online users become
opinion leaders in matters as wide as possible and bring attention to ideas
which audiences may never have been exposed to before, which serves as
informative but also naturally manipulative in the sense that the way in which
content is presented will be developed for the perception of that viewpoint
being correct and favourable by the audience. While this is a deterministic
statement, the concept of free-will is applicable as ever because new and
digital media also provides access to what can most simply be concluded
factual. Informative websites including encyclopaedias are at a fingertip’s
reach of audiences so it eventually comes down to the initiative and
inquisition of audiences to discover the validity of information they come
across.
With the availability of higher bandwidth broadband and
internet access, streaming music and video content has become the norm.
Institutions had identified and have now profitably developed from this with
the prevalence of music streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and
even Tidal. These institutions compete vigorously among one another to gain the
largest subscription list of music listeners, a competition which should
allegedly enhance the consumer’s experience. However, this has proven otherwise
due to cases such as Apple Music’s exclusive deals with musicians including
Taylor Swift and Dr. Dre, leaving the availability of music from these artists
solely to the Apple platform. Such exclusive deals are ranged across the three
competitors and leave audiences having to sacrifice (or not) listening to a
favoured artist for a better deal with a lower price and better technical
accessibility. This concludes for the audience as a battle of sacrifices which
is irrational and disputes claims of better value for money, hence not being
empowering at all.
New & digital media proves to be a force against
political corruption, which is empowering for audiences as illegitimate
authorities of power are exposed. This has shown to prove since the Watergate
scandal many decades ago and henceforth in the essence of celebrity lives, as
socially unacceptable acts such as rape, murder and drug abuse are exposed via
the media and often dealt with justifiable actions. The results of this produce a society which is
closely under surveillance by itself which draws a debate between the balance
of privacy and safety/social compliance. Arguably however, news reporting institutions may have less resources today to be able to investigate corruption with the same vigour as they may have been able to once upon a time. Many critics accuse this consequential lack of revenue
The discussed issues scratch the surface of a complex debate
which blurs between philosophical and sociological analysis of the media’s
effects in the digital age we live in. Cases of availability of wide ranged
views and values propose that the empowerment of audiences relies most
profoundly on the understanding and education of the audience members, which is
associated and complicated considerably by a phenomenon of ‘uncommon sense’ as
the wide range of opinions ultimately create binary oppositions in social
beliefs, both sides of which are presented passionately and resultantly leave
the audience by themselves to filter the content consumed.
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