essay

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.

Development in new and digital media has let the audience be more powerful and controlling in the media to a certain extent. My case study focuses on the impact of mobile phones in new and digital media.

My texts for this case study are Iphone, Blackberry, Nokia N97, and Sony Ericsson xperia. The audience is powerful in terms of consumption and production because the audience as the consumers have a control of what they receive and want to keep in their phones which gives them a choice of what they want and so gives the sense of pluralism.

Although it could also be argued that there is the theory of Marxism present because the institution controls the consumers demand for example apple would not allow its consumers to make an app and start selling it until it has been checked and confirmed by the institution itself, and so it makes the audience less powerful.

It also gives the audience a feel of UGC because the audience has a choice of recording videos or keeping the history of their chats on phones like blackberries.
It gives all the control and also gives a higher status to the audience as they are allowed to keep what they want and have all the control and keeps their mobiles as a possession.
Globalisation also applies to my case study as the phones such as Iphone’s, and blackberry’s are invented in more economically developed countries such as USA and UK but get sold in less economically developed countries such as India as well as in USA and UK itself and so this means that these phones have a good reputation all around which again the audience decide as they buy more products as such.
Overall I think that the audience is powerful but to a certain extent as they don’t really have all the control over their product but on the other hand they do so it makes them a little powerful.

Audiences can also be able to access social networking sites such as facebook and twitter and others. This means the audience can go on site using the internet on their phones with a click of a button.