NDM question.

New and digital media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences. Consider how and why media institutions are using these techniques. 

Due to the development of technology causing an expansion in the digital media means it is now easier for media institutions to reach audiences and are able to gain a greater understanding of what their audience want in order to reach target their audience. New and digital media offer media institutions different ways of reaching the audiences. The case study this essay will be looking at is the news industry and how the news industry has played an important part in allowing the media institutions different ways of reaching the audiences. There are many different ways in which the institutions has reached audiences, for example the internet has allowed a gateway between media institutions and audiences which is allowing them both to engage and know what is happening around the world.

According the Alain De Botton: ‘News guides us – it teaches us what is important. Due to the increase in new and digital media, the newspaper industry has been declining. Originally, news was received through word of mouth. From the 17^th century to early 20^th century, during the Guttenberg revolution, newspapers were the main source of news. However, as technological changes made advances, newspapers started to decline and digital media became a more convenient form of reaching audiences. According to Briggs and Burke, ‘The internet is the most important medium of the 21^st century’. Therefore, media institutions such as Newscorp (owned by Rupert Murdoch) had to adapt and change along with the media to be able to continue their audience readership.

News industries such as the times, the guardian etc. have set up websites on the internet to gain a higher readership and to keep up with audience demand. This has made it harder for institutions to make money as audiences are able to get news easily online. However, some news institutions have set up paywalls (subscriptions) in order to still make money out of their news. For example, the times newspaper has successfully set up a paywall which audiences have subscribed to as a means of getting reliable news. Although the paywalls have not worked for every institution, for example, the sun’s paywall did not succeed as audiences were not willing to pay for news that they are able to gain from every other news website and as a result they had to remove their paywall. This could also be down to the fact that both companies have different types of audiences and therefore have to use different strategies in order to sustain their audience readership. Some companies have to still rely on advertisement to make money from news on websites. However, the increase in digital media is making this more and more difficult for institutions as there are now apps like ‘ad blocker’ on the apple store and play store on mobile phones to block out these ads. Also, as audiences now search through google, advertisement revenues are going straight to google and increasing its power and threat on the existence of the newspaper industry. This supports Parettos law where power has been concentrated in the hands of a few and a minority of media institutions dominate the industry. Institutions such as the independent have already suffered from the decline in newspapers as they have turned to an online only news company and abandoned print. This shows that institutions are using and adapting to these new techniques as a means of survival.

The threat of new and digital media and the internet has led to a decline of newspaper circulation and revenue. This has causes newspaper institutions to turn to desperate measures in order to gain a breaking story to attract readers. Rebecca Brookes and the News of the world phone hacking scandal is an example of the unethical journalist behaviour that had used controversy in order to gain an audience. However it could be argued that this scandal would not have tsken place if the technology to make it happen didn’t exist. This shows that new techniques may need to be used in order to prevent losing readers.

Along with the increase of new and digital media, social networking sites have also been expanding amongst audiences. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat etc. are a platform on which institutions are able to reach a wider target audience and makes it more convenient for both audiences and institutions to deliver and receive news. Newspaper companies are now able to crate accounts of social networks to continue giving audiences news directly and focus on individual stories. From Galtung and Ruge’s news values, the value of immediacy can be applied here as audiences gain access to breaking news faster from social networks before it is even published on newspapers. According to ‘news on the tweet’, twitter is used to gain and connect with younger readers and a different audience much more efficiently and immediately. This element of immediacy allows more readers to engage with the news which is why institutions would use these new techniques.

Social networking sites also allow audiences to interact and participate in the news delivering process. The use of hashtags on twitter allow trends to inform to notify the audiences of a certain breaking story. For example, the use of the hashtag ‘#prayforparis’ allowed audiences to find out and sympathise with the terrorist attacks in Paris. Also, audiences themselves had recorded certain attacks at the time which allowed others to see the severity of the attacks which some journalists could not have gained footage of. The rise of user-generated content (UGC) and citizen journalism has allowed audiences to play an active part in the news industry. According to Paul Lewis, ‘citizen journalism provides a new layer of accountability.’ This is because it has uncovered the other side of many big stories. For example, with the death of Eric Garner, the video was posted by the citizens and uncovered that the police were to blame. Without this proof, the truth would not have been known. Having citizen journalism allows audiences to receive a real, less mediated story due to the absence of gate keeping which could be seen as both a strength and weakness as although it may be providing a true account of something, the story may not be verified. User-generated content such as blogs have allowed audiences to create their own news or publish other news themselves. However, Andrew Keen links webpages and blogposts to the activity of a million monkeys typing nonsense. This means that audiences the produce ugc are not really aware about what they are saying and therefore could be a misleading source of news.

There have been many changes and developments in technology and the new/digital media which has created a new platform for audiences and institutions to adapt to. The new techniques used by institutions have given the audience more power and a place to interact and grow whilst getting the knowledge they need in a much more convenient way. A Marxist perspective would argue that the so-called “information revolution” has done little to benefit audiences or to subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012) as many have claimed, it has merely helped to reinforce the status quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news website in the UK by a considerable margin is the ‘Mail Online’, which receives more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly – with forecasts that it will make £100 million or more in digital revenues in the next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a conservative, right-wing perspective on key issues around gender, sexuality and race and audiences appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Moir, wrote a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately in 2009 there were Twitter and Facebook protests bit, ultimately, they did not change the editorial direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper. 

A pluralist perspective would argue that the audience has the ultimate power in terms of production and consumption. This is due to the face that audiences are seen as capable of manipulating the media in many ways according to their needs and having access to. They are able to ‘conform, accommodate, challenge or reject’ (Gurevitch et al). According to pluralists the audience is active and can choose and select the media they want to consume as we have free will and are not controlled. During the Arab spring protests, many people in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya has started uprisings to get what they want, through this they managed to achieve democracy and get their voices heard which shows how important and powerful the audience are. The pluralists see the internet as “the most important medium of the 20^st century” (Briggs and Burke) which can be used to find out any information needed in a more convenient way. This fits in with the uses and gratifications theory of surveillance (Blumer and Katz). The use of citizen journalism has created more UGC (user generated content) which has become increasingly common. An example of citizen journalism is the death of Ian Tomlinson which was carried out by a police officer. A member of the public filmed the incident, which The Guardian then released soon after. This created major controversy over the case This has also given us the ability to share our views on more platforms such as on blogs. “The internet has given readers much more power…the world is changing and newspapers have to adapt” (Rupert Murdoch, Newscorp) which shows that newspapers itself are not doing so good as it is the audience who determines the success of these businesses. This has resulted in the “mutualisation of news” (Rushbridger), which tells us that it is not just the gate keepers who produce news but also the audiences as it is mutual and top down.

This shows that even though institutions may be benefitting from the new techniques they are using to reach audiences, they have willingly or unwillingly given a huge amount of control to the audience. However, the control the audience have benefits some institutions and they use these techniques in order to be successful themselves.