In the Age of Media Six Questions about Media and Participation
Web 2.0 refers to online social media
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/MM39_Participation_6ques.html
- Due to the changes in social media people are no longer consumers but are producers as well.
- Blogs and forums give people the opportunity to say their opinion and to speak back to those who are in power. Whereas, social networking sites allows people to connect and interact with others around the world. Similarly, Youtube also gives individuals' the opportunity to distribute their own media content globally.
- Social media such as blogs, forums, networking sites do not require getting editors permissions or gatekeepers and can be accessed anytime, by anyone, anywhere.
- These changes have a massive shift from tradition old media to new media as there is more user-generate content, citizen journalism and the empowerment of the audience.
Whats New?
- There are dangers to the change of technology as it may bring about revolutionary social change.
- Technologies do not come from anywhere but they are created by the wider social, economic and culture developments.
- Its impact is always dependent on how they are used, by whom and for what purpose.
Who's participating?
- Research suggest that there are some inequalities in participation based on gender differences. For example, women are leading in areas such as blogging, while men usually dominate video sharing.
- However, the important and shocking differences are in terms of social class. For example, in the US it is young people from from middle class high income families who are likely to be posting something online. Unlike, working class individuals' who do have computers at home, are less likely to have multi-media capabilities that are needed for more sophisticated content creation and sharing.
- Twitter is dominated by middle class people.
- Young people are the early adopters of Twitter are are the digital generation. This means that there is a technological gap.
Whose making the money?
"Technology is shifting power away from editors the publishers as it now consumers who are in control"quoted by Rupert Murdock
- Richest and most profitable global media corporation are now Google and Facebook.
Article Two
Participation Debates – The media and democracy
- One could argue that social networking has opened up opportunities for democracy. Eg The XFactor 2010 series , 15,488,019 million votes were cast by viewers to decided the outcome of the programme. Even though the winners are unlikely to change the world it is an example of media democracy at work.
- Digital revolution and Web 2.0 have given users the opportunity to communicate ideas globally through the use of social networking
- Political level, Egypt and Libya couldn't have happened without the use of Twitter and Facebook with young people using social networking sites.
- Internet had empowered its users by giving them unparalleled instant and unmediated access to unfolding news stories from a variety of sources. E.g MJ death reports first appeared on Twitter and Facebook.
- Not seen a true democracy in 'Arab Spring' countries.
- Blogging is another way that the media are becoming democratic.
Article Three
Web 2.0 – Participation or Hegemony?
- Web 2.0 is a important medium that allows audience to become produces of medium texts. (Example, blogs which audience can use to produce, and share their own work)
- Web 2.0 is often referred to 'we media' which democratises the media, as anyone with web connection can create and publish texts. This means that audience no longer need to rely upon professional organisations
- Some believe that this has led to 'dumbing down' and 'the cult of the amateur' because anyone can create texts.
- Audience no longer have to reply upon traditional media.
Graeme Turner (2004) argues:
"Even when ordinary people become celebrities through their own creative efforts, there is no necessary transfer of media power: they remain within the system of celebrity native to, and controlled by, the mass media"
Burgess and Green "conclude that there are two YouTubes; they argue it is ‘a space where these two categories [traditional media and home video] co-exist and collide, but do not really converge"
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