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
a 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 but, ultimately, they did not change the editorial
direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper.
A pluralist would argue that the audience have a lot of
power when it comes down to being powerful in terms of consumption and
production. Audiences are now entitled to 'conform, accommodate or reject what
they want to watch according to Gurevitch. Also, looking at Katz and Blumers
theory of users and gratification, the audiences can watch what they want to
watch. Meaning if the audiences didn't appreciate what was being shown on
television, they can 'reject' and the programme
is most likely to lose their audience and probably go off air. Looking at the protest that's taking place in
Ferguson for the loss of Mike Brown who was unfairly shot by a police officer,
many people are now protesting and going against such a powerful institution.
Couple years ago, without citizen journalism, a policeman would've probably
gotten away with committing such a thing. However, with the advanced
technologies and social sites, the audience can now present their views and not
necessarily agree with the important, powerful institution.
It is very apparent that lately, with the technological
changes that have appeared, the users feel more dominant and feel like they are
able to choose what they want to watch and what they don't want to watch. This
takes away the power the news and media had as its now the consumer's choice of
what they want to produce. This also refers to Katz and Blumer's theory of the
audience watching what they want to watch. Also, another thing that has made
the consumers so powerful is arguably, citizen journalism. This is the act of
when one who isn't a journalist take pictures or videos that can back the news
and which is most likely used later. The
decline in newspaper is also causing the audience to have much more power than
they had before. The newspaper is in decline as people can now access news
online wherever and through whatever means. This has been causing a great
decline in news paper.
The higher institutions such as the police force don't have
as much power as they once did. Now, whenever the public feel as if powerful
institutions are going against what they should do, the public makes protests
and such like the tragic story of Mike Brown. He was shot as he was telling the
police officer 'I cant breath.' Due to this tragic event, most people around
the world are making protests and complaining, this is undermining the police
force and such. There are hash tags that relate to him all of twitter.
