Mest 3 January 2011 part b

To connect, to create, to share creativity or thought, to discuss, to collaborate, to form groups or to combine with others in mutual interests or passions. If you can’t see the point of any of those things, you will not see the point of Facebook.’

(www.guardian.co.uk)

What opportunities and/or disadvantages do new and digital media have for audiences?

New and digital techniques has created more opportunities to audiences as they can now connect, create media texts, share thoughts and creativity, collaborate and discuss, and form groups with people that have mutual interests and passions. Although all these things seem positive there are disadvantages such as less privacy, less censorship, danger of the growth of bad groups and several or things that will be mentioned later in this essay.

An example of how people can share ideas is Youtube. People can produce media texts expressing their ideas and values. This gives people the opportunity to share ideas and highlight problems with society. An example of this is Kony 2012. This was an online campaign that was put online to spread awareness of, and helps catch a man guilty of war crimes; it raised thousands of pounds and helped keep some military advisers in Africa to help local militaries catch this man. This is an example of possible benefits to society of new and digital media.

Another area were new and digital media has benefited society is with the ability to discuss topics in the public eye. On most the news channels there is areas for people to leave comments, opinions and feelings about the article. This allows the public to discuss and share the feelings about the topic and take action is necessary. This can be done on separate website not only news websites. This is one of the ways the student protests were set up; lots of people were unhappy about the increase in tuition fees and shared their feeling online. A protest was then setup on these sites. This shows that new and digital media has allowed people to with similar to discuss and then meet to take action about things they are not happy with in society. This is something that would have been very difficult and long to do in the past.

Another benefit of new and digital technology is it helps the police and authority prevent and reduce crime. This is because is people talk about illegal activities online it can be seen by police; the police can then go to the places and stop the people from committing crimes and arrest any people guilty of committing crime. Also the police can use and video or image in court to prove someone is guilty of the crime; this was something used a lot after the London riots to imprison people who participated in the riots and broke the law.

There are also disadvantages of people with similar ideas being able to connect; this is that it is likely groups of people who may abuse this power and may meet up and commit acts of crime. An example of this is the London riots. Many people used social networking sites and other websites and platforms to communicate and arrange to meet and cause mayhem. This allowed these people to meet up in large groups and cause destruction and loot. This ended up costing the government millions of pounds and is an example of a disadvantage of new and digital media.

Another disadvantage to audiences is they can be exposed to incorrect information. This could be put presented in a way to make audiences ideas and values to change. By doing this people and businesses can make audiences do things and think things that they wouldn’t have done before. This is because audiences are used to consuming texts and content from large trust worthy sources and because of this don’t often question idea shown to them and often just believe them; this can be harmful to society if a large percentage of the population believe take on board these ideas that are not necessarily true.

In conclusion new and digital media has provided many opportunities for people as well as having several disadvantages to audiences, this means people must be responsible when using new technology and not abuse the power it gives them and regulation should be in place to stop people from abusing opportunities they get from new and digital media.