Mest 3 June 2011 part b

‘New and digital media erodes the dividing line between reporters and reported, between active producers and passive audiences: people are enabled to speak for themselves.’ 

(www.indymedia.org.uk)

 Have such developments made the media more democratic, with more equal participation by more people?

New and digital media has led to the production of media texts possible for members of the public and small independent organisations, also since the increase of internet speed and popularity they have a place to put their texts. This has led to an increase in audience production which means they are less passive and are now the producers of texts as well as consumers. This means that consumers will have the option between consuming texts from the big media companies or smaller independent producers and therefor can chose media texts that have alternative ideology in the media.

One way in which developments in new and digital media has created more consumer participation is the increase of mobile phones with cameras. Since the increase in use of smartphones, people have been taking photos and videos of events which are then broadcasted on new channels.  Also this increase has led to more people making videos as a response to events shown in the media; they are often labeled “RE:” and then the issue they are going to be taking about. This shows show developments in new and digital media has led to more participation by more people.

Another development that has led to an increase in production by audience is the increased availability of cheap camera and editing software. This has enabled people to produce media texts; also the increase in internet usage means that they can post their products online and gain viewership. This has been very popular recently and now there are hundreds of producers of media texts that do not belong to large media companies. These independent producers are more likely to produce content that has alternative ideology. Also these smaller producer offer there viewers a chance to tell the producers what to create in the texts; this means the media is becoming more democratic as consumers are having more say in what is being produced.

Another way in which the media is getting more democratic is people can now communicate their feeling about media texts that can lead to a change in the media text itself. People can email in to the media producer or can talk about the issue with the media product online on social networking sites and forums. In the past this has led to changes in media texts and sometime even public apologies to groups offended. This shows that developments in new and digital media has given people a chance to speak for themselves and made the media more democratic.

Despite the developments in new and digital media talked about above, there is not as much of an increase in equal participation. This is because even is more content is produced by lots of smaller companies when the products get very popular they are often bought out by a big company; an example of this is S.B.T.V. This is a channel that started on Youtube by a man called Jamal Edward; he used to record videos of his friends rapping and then uploaded them on to Youtube. When he became more popular he started recording songs with more popular underground artist and was eventually bought by Sony. This means that views of people are not being shown to the masses and there is not more participation by people as they are being added to big companies as soon as they get popular.

Also even though people are now able to communicate with media producers and view their opinions about issues with media texts, it doesn’t mean that producers have to change their texts. This shows that developments in new and digital media have not necessarily made the media more democratic as the producers can make their products however they want despite their viewer’s feelings about the products.

Although participation by people has increased, I feel it goes unnoticed most of the time; this is because when someone produces a media text and is not made by a large recognizable company it tends to get ignored by people. This could be for a number of different reasons, such as them being put somewhere where they are unlikely to get views, this is because it is likely to get put on a site like Youtube were millions of people upload videos everyday so videos from a nobody are unlikely to get viewed. Also content made by someone made by someone that is not well known is unlikely to get viewed as people would rather go with a more well-known and reliable source .This shows that even though more participation taken by people the market share of large companies is not really changed meaning that the media is not more democratic.

In conclusion develops in the media and new and digital technology have made the media more democratic than the past and has created more participation by people but despite this I feel that the big media companies still display the views and ideologies that they want to and still have the majority market share of the audience over smaller producers. This means that the changes are insignificant as the majority of the population is still behaving the way they were before the changes had occurred.