Does your case study suggest that new and digital media have had a positive impact by offering audiences a more diverse range of values and ideologies?
New and digital media has had an impact on the way products are now consumed. For example there has been a decrease in the way traditional media platforms are being viewed by a younger demographic which has caused a decline in newspapers, TV news, people watching TV, increase in illegal streams ect.
In the music industry there has been a decline in the amount of people who are buying physical copies of music albums. This can be seen through the increase in numbers of people illegally streaming. This could be argued that the consumers now have more free will and choice which is why they can decide if they want to buy the physical copy or not and this would be suggested by Pluralists. There are now apps such as Spotify that allow people to stream music rather than downloading it illegally. However although this is the case there is also a payment needed which is required for the premium membership. This is £9.99 but students are charged £4.99. This impacts the amount of downloads it receives as those who are students are more likely to be on new and digital media devices hence the accessibility of receiving music from one app. With the decrease in price it will affect the amount of physical copies sold and they're already paying monthly for an unlimited amount of songs.
Moreover, Marxists would argue that there is still control within the industry and that the ruling class still have authority. Rather than it being physical copies being sold they're still able to make money digitally which is why artists also promote their music on iTunes which may also create a large revenue. For example Beyonce released her album on iTunes before even releasing the physical copy. Artists promote this through social media and because they're opinion leaders the audience are more likely to act in a way that the celebrity is saying. This would be purchasing the digital copy as well as the physical one.
Also, due to globalisation people are now able to gain the interest of songs from other countries and genres and this allows them to access all types of music from one platform. There is no affect of the hypodermic needle model as they audience aren't seeing the same text or song over and over again. There are comment sections which allow people to give their views and opinions linking to user generated content. Pluralists would argue that this is a good thing as the audience are able to have more of a choice and because of this they can attract a large audience due to globalisation which means an increase in downloads for apps such as Spotify. For example there are now songs that have people from two or more different countries making songs together due to globalisation because of new and digital media allowing globalisation to take place.
However, media Institutions that usually promote people's albums such as record companies will have a decline in revenue due to a lack in sales of physical copies. For example this is seen with Amazon as they had lost money on illegal streaming for The Grand Tour which meant they had lost out on millions. Also in the film industry with A Field in England where they had a simultaneous release of the film on all platforms so that they didn't lose out on money through illegal downloads. Spotify is now the leading app in sales for music and there are other ways to stream music illegally through uTorrent and zips that people are using. This is due to new and digital media which affects the power that the media Institutions have and gives it to the audience instead. This is because pluralists argue that there is now more freedom amongst the audience to pick and choose what they want to do.
Audiences can now interact with apps as they can upload songs themselves. For example apps such as soundcloud allow the audience to make a song and put it online without the use of having a record label. This means that there's a change in power as the audience now have control. This means that there's less revenue for the record company as people don't need to be signed to a company in order to produce music. Marxists would still argue that this is a new way that the media Institutions have started to gain control rather than traditionally through other platforms.
In conclusion, new and digital media has had a positive impact on the audience as they're now able to have more control over what they want to do. This is because of new and digital media and globalisation has helped put this in place. However, the media Institutions are losing out on revenue and have lost control.
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