consumer habits in recent years
TRANSCRIPT
‘Audiences have become more empowered and active consumers
of media texts in recent years.’ Evaluate the accuracy of this
statement
By Helen, Tom, and Louis
Past
• T.V. only had terrestrial channels – No choice of what to view.
• This is an example of passive audience consumption, as they just watched what was playing.
• The internet wasn’t around so no further exploration of media was enabled apart from in Newspapers and T.V. magazines which didn’t tell you the specific topic you wanted to research.
• Before “digital technologies” came into existence there was only one way of consuming each type of media, and these were far less diverse and far less controversial. The recent expansion of weirder, less safe media
Present
• Cheap new technology enables everyone to become a producer in so doing they can create new versions of media that already exist and interact with the text becoming a more active audience member.
• Websites like youtube.com enable people to comment on videos and interact with others who have commented.
Radiohead - Empowerment
• How people can take a track, and mix it e.g. Radiohead's mash-up contest
• Contests to create new media (Radiohead) means that audiences become more empowered to interact with the media by creating new media.
Interaction
• How people can change the meaning of a text to what they want.
• How people can take a song and replace it with a political 'dig'. e.g. W.M.D (P.I.M.P - 50 Cent parody)
• How there are legal issues with copyrighting and ownership.
• Ways to interact: Comment – Youtube user comments Create – ‘Daft Hands’ Actively search – Google Blogs and forums – Discuss Join Groups
Power
• Producers have the same amount of power .
• However the audiences power has grown fundamentally.
Evaluate
• In recent years there have been lots of important developments in technology and society which have been highlighted earlier.
• It is for these reasons that we agree with the statement and find it very accurate, although the question does not specify when ‘recent years’ begin and end.