Media - the New Media

Question 1

What is the difference between mass media and new media?

Answer 1

• Mass media - forms of communication that transmit information, news and entertainment to mass audiences
• Usually done by newspapers, magazines, adverts, media, television, cinema and music, but mass communication is now being done more by new forms of media
• New media - emergence of forms of communication in the last 25 years, such as smartphone technology, laptops, texting and digital TV, with the internet being the most innovative introduction due to the wide information access and services available; the development of high speed broadband increased this interconnectivity of information and people
• New media and traditional media have a range of differences - most people received television pictures through aerials and analogue TV in the 1990s, with only a few terrestrial channels
• However, in modern times, people are able to buy digital, flat-screen TVs, subscriptions to streaming services and over 700 channels on radio and TV - and the internet also offers the consumer a range of services such as online shopping browsers, game-play and social media on smartphones

Question 2

Debates on new media - the basics

Answer 2

1) Neophiliacs - New media is becoming increasingly popular, with some sociologists seeing this as expanding choice and others see it as an opportunity to criticise the powerful with protests and so everyone can be an active political participant with the new media
2) Cultural pessimists - the democratic potential of new media is exaggerated because forms of media are increasingly brought by corporations that own older media, and the implications and they also argue that the new media is problematic because they create cultural illiteracy (dumbing-down of popular culture), the decline of community and emergence of new social problems

Question 3

Characteristics of new media - digitalisation, technological convergence and economic convergence

Answer 3

Digitalisation -
- Growth of digital technologies in the 1990s resulted in changes in the way information is stored and transmitted, and all information despite the format is now converted to binary code
- Masses of information can be stored and used to access apps, websites etc

Technological convergence -
- Digitalisation has resulted in the convergence of different types of information into a single delivery system, available through smart television, laptops and smartphones
- Boyle (2006) - digitalisation allows information to be delivered across a range of media platforms that were once unconnected technologies
- We can watch television and films, take photos, consult GPs, download music, play games, message and email and use social media all on the same device
- It means that people are never truly disconnected, but are able to access media quickly, which can raise awareness of events quickly.

Economic convergence -
- Media and telecommunication industries that once produced distinct systems of communication now make economic alliances with each other due to reduced boundaries between media sectors from digitalisation
- This cross-fertilisation of ideas and resources underpinned by digitalisation produced these news forms of converged multimedia delivery systems
- Ethics of companies have changed with a need for social media advertising, and they have had to change their strategies and structures to accommodate media. - marxism; proletariat can easily build their own business. However, consumers get less choice as just one corporation is created, and they all own a large part of the media - bourgeois ideology

Question 4

Characteristics of the new media - cultural convergence, interactivity and choice

Answer 4

Cultural convergence -
- Jenkins - media convergence = cultural convergence, as it has changed the way members of a society interact with the media and each other, such as changing the name of consumerism in the UK
2012 - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that six out of ten British adults use the internet to buy food, clothing, music, insurance or holidays compared with only 3/10 in other OECD nations
- The new media have also changed the way that people interact with one another, with Facebook being the number one social networking site and 9 million people in the UK communicating with others via Twitter
- It means that cultures have lost their individualism / need to submerge yourself in one to be part of that culture or engage with it - reduces need to travel - functionalism; changes social solidarity and value consensus’ because of boundaries in cultures changing. Society is not stagnant; postmodernism and hybridity and dumbing down of popular culture.

Interactivity -
- The new media is interactive and responsive in ‘real-time’ to user input through clicking on links or selecting menu items with a mouse, and so the internet emphasises interactive media because it lets users select what they look at
- They can also mix and match the information they want, for example wanting to access news through a range of sources
- This allows us to control the media and the narratives within it, pushing a message of for the people by the people; however, it can also be overwhelming.

Choice -
- Jenkins argues that media audiences today can now interact with a variety of media, using a single device for entertainment, food, social relationships etc and so today’s new media audience have more choice compared 1990s media audiences
- Boyle also notes that society’s use of television has evolved from a system of supply and demand led television organised around the idea that viewers or subscribers should choose what they want to watch and when, and so viewers are not constrained by television schedules
- It means that media is a lot more accommodating to our lives and therefore increases access to these services - reduces information gaps.

Question 5

Characteristics of the new media - participatory culture and collective intelligence

Answer 5

Participatory culture -
- New media audiences no longer passively receive entertainment and knowledge - people often actively collaborate with new media and other users by uploading content to sharing sites and sharing music etc
- Jenkins therefore argues that convergence and interactivity have produced a participatory culture - media producers and consumers no longer occupy separate roles but they are now participants that interact with each other
- Means we can never truly disconnect, and media becomes about impressing and catering to the consumer or societal trends rather than what is needing to be made or distributed. - interactionism and postmodernism

Collective intelligence -
- Jenkins also suggested that this participatory culture is producing a ‘collective intelligence’, noting that none of us can know everything but we all put together the pieces we do know by pooling resources and combining skills
- He claims that this collective intelligence constructed by new media users challenges traditional and official ways of seeing the world provided by media owners, politicians, civil servants etc
- Jenkins claims that new media content is an alternative user-led source of information that is often critical of information produced top-down by traditional media
- Allows more access to information, increases education and independence. - interactionism and postmodernism

Question 6

Who is using the new media?

Answer 6

Ofcom’s report ‘Adults’ media use and attitudes’ (2015) shows the extent of media literacy which defined the ability to use, understand and create media and communications in a variety of contexts and how the media landscape has changed since 2005

Ofcom noted the following changes in media use since 2005:
- 84% of adults in the UK accessed the internet using a variety of devices inside and outside the home (54% in 2005)
- 69% of people accessed the internet via smartphones and tablets and laptops
- The claimed weekly hours of internet use among all adults had doubled from 9.9 hours to 20.5 hours
- Texting was the preferred social contact, with 96% of people doing it at least once a week
- 7 in 10 internet users had a social media profile on a site such as Facebook, 81% of those with a profile claimed to visit social media at least once a day, rising to 93% for the 16-24 year age group
- Watching TV remained hugely popular, but it had increased with convergence with the internet, smartphones and tablets meant viewers were constructing their schedules with catch-up and streaming services
- Consumption of short-form user-generated online platforms like YouTube as a source of information increased considerably since 2005

Question 7

The generational divide in new media usage

Answer 7

• Boyle (2007) - new media are associated with young people; surveys associated with Ofcom suggested that 12-15 year olds are more likely to be engaged in some form of cross-media multitasking e.g. texting friends whilst doing homework - generational divide
• 2015 Ofcom survey suggested that the generation divide may be in decline as older age groups increasingly engage in online activities such as social networking via phones and tablets
• Boyle argues that there is no doubt that the media experience of young people growing up in the UK in 2015 is different to that of previous generations as the generation that has grown up in the last 15 years has had a more extensive experience of new media in a shorter period of time
• The new media of the internet and social networking and phones are ‘now’ media, significantly different from previous media because of their immediacy and accessibility
• Therefore, the ways young people access and seek out entertainment and news differ to previous generations, and they are more likely to want it all now, tailored to their specific needs and identities
• Boyle observes that adult anxieties about the use of media by young people have always existed - however, young people’s access to a greater range of new media gadgets has amplified traditional concerns and led to new social anxieties about children and young people accessing pornography and terrorist propaganda as well as new forms of bullying and grooming that are appearing through social media

Question 8

The digital class divide in new media usage

Answer 8

• The poor are also excluded from the new media usage because they are a digital underclass who cannot afford to keep up with middle class use of media technology - Ofcom surveys indicate that although the digital class divide has narrowed in recent years, it still exists
• 95% of the AB socio-economic group use a range of new media devices with only 75% of the DE socio-economic group doing the same (Ofcom 2015)
• Helpser (2011) - despite a narrowing of the class divide, a digital underclass characterised by unemployment, lower education levels and low digital skills, does exist in the UK, with evidence suggesting this group has increased its internet usage at a much slower rate than other social groups and those members of this group do have internet access rate their skills poorer than other more educated groups

Question 9

The digital gender divide in new media usage

Answer 9

• Li and Kirkup (2007) - significant gender differences between men and women in the UK in their use of new media technology - men were more likely than women to use email or chat rooms, and men used computer game consoles more

In 2014 Ofcom reported -
- Males were more likely than females to access the internet (23.3 > 17.8)
- Women are more likely to go online and use social media sites (67% > 60%)

• Internet Advertising Bureau - 2014 research suggested women account for 52% of those who play digital games due to smartphone popularity that means you can’t only play games on consoles - Candy Crush and Angry Birds were particularly popular with females as they were free, intuitive, accessible and not time-consuming to learn
• Olson et al (2008) - boys are more likely to play more violent video games because they want to express fantasies power and glory, master exciting and realistic environments and to work out anger and stress
• Same study noted increasing numbers of girls using violent games to cope with anger; Hartmann and Klimmt (2006) found women gamers generally disliked violent content and preferred the social interaction aspect of games
• Royse et al (2007) - female gamers who played between 3 and 10 hours a week found them to be manly motivated by technical competition offered by games that let them change gender norms

Question 10

The global digital divide in new media usage

Answer 10

• World Economic Forum - 2014; digital divide between developed and developing nations, especially least developing nations is worsening - the developed world has greater access to broadband and internet
• World Bank 2012 - ¾ of the world population has access to a mobile phone - 6 billion phones in use and 5 billion were in developing countries, with mobile phone use spreading the most quickly in Africa
• GSMA 2014 - 72% of Africans use mobile phones, but this creates a false impression of a digital revolution -
  > Masks that mobile phone connectivity is limited
  > 18% of the phones are smartphones
  > Regional disparities to mobile phone access - e.g. only 5% of Eritrea has a mobile phone
  > Only 7% of Africa’s inhabitants are online
  > Difficulties of access are compounded by the fact that most of the language of the internet is English
  > A fairly large proportion of African countries have high levels of illiteracy

Question 11

Traditional media

Answer 11

• Uniform (homogenous) messages to very large mass audiences
• One-way, non-interactive process
• Traditional broadcasting such as terrestrial TV channels like BBC 1 and 2, ITV 1, Channel 4 and 5 and BBC Radio 1 & 2 - mass circulated media such as national and Sunday newspapers are also considered under this category
• Little consumer choice, beyond a few channels, radio stations or newspapers
• Scheduled, ordered output of media

Question 12

New Media

Answer 12

• Refers to the interactive, screen-based, digital (computer) technology involving images, text, sound and technology used for the distribution and consumption of media
• Enables customised, individualised TV viewing with a choice; hundreds of channels, on demand scheduling (internet downloads of films, music onto smartphones), user generated media content via Twitter and websites like Facebook and YouTube, interactive video/computer games using PlayStations and Xboxes
• Has lead to media saturation due to rapid change - links to globalisation, hybridity, choice (pick n mix) and pluralism (postmodern) and disembeddedness and reflexivity (late modern)

Question 13

Internet usage in 2022

Answer 13

Internet use is now at 14 hours per week per person in 2022 in Europe. People in the UK spend around 27 hours a week watching TV compared to around 8 hours a week using a PC. This is an underestimate as people tend to use the internet through a range of devices however, particularly in younger age groups. On average, around half of adult’s waking hours are spent using media, and advertisers now spend more money on social media advertising than traditional media. In response, traditional media has moved online e.g. BBC News app, and the importance of advertising income means websites have to appeal to mass audiences to attract advertisers. Spam is used as a cheap method of reaching mass audiences.

Question 14

The Marxist view on the digital divide - age

Answer 14

• The generation gap of using media has an impact on how most media is used between each generation.
• Younger years use more social media/ entertainment and are connecting with friends more- however, older generations use mobile phones/ social media less (48% of 75+ compared to 1% of 16-24 not using the internet).
• Marxism sees this growing collective intelligence as important in upending a ruling class ideology
• However, it also means that young people are exposed to the bourgeois ideology and as a result they legitimate the capitalist system and values leading to a dual consciousness where they have the choice of a range of paths but are still competing with those they see on social media etc

Question 15

The Marxist view on the digital divide - class

Answer 15

• According to Instrumentalist Marxists, the primary role of the media is to spread ruling class ideology and maintain the status quo, keeping the current unequal capitalist system in place.
• Therefore, the suppression of the working class in their media access allows bourgeois control of new media outlets - therefore, this trend in new media usage is worrying for Marxists
• Marxism - the media is made by the bourgeoisie for their use, to alienate the proletariat from information, keeping them fragmented and unable to break free from their false class consciousness (it also becomes a tool of hegemony to create a dual consciousness)

Question 16

The Marxist view on the digital divide - gender

Answer 16

• Marxist Feminists would see this as a positive outlet for women in overcoming stereotypes
• Marxists in general would also view this gender divide as another example of how men use the new media to release frustrations from work. This allows them to remain happy at work as they have an outlet and area where they are able to be the boss - similarly, the outlet for women allows capitalist society to keep them within their family role to socialise the next generation

Question 17

The Marxist view on the digital divide - culture

Answer 17

• This creates a similar opportunity for a Western dominance of media culture, allowing Western capitalist systems and their bourgeois ideologies to be spread even further and dominate the media
• It also exemplifies how media is a tool of a capitalist society because of the prominence of new media in Western society

Question 18

The Postmodern view on the digital divide - age

Answer 18

→postmodernists say that in 99% of 16-24 year olds and 81% of 75+ year olds using a mobile phone brings light to the concept of media saturation, The use of media in society is increasing and can be considered excessive.
→ In a media saturated society there is also simulacra and hyper-reality.
-> this creates a postmodern generation that competes with a modern generation, as media saturation allows more globalisation, diversity, choice and pluralism in the younger generation

Question 19

The Postmodern view on the digital divide - class

Answer 19

• There is a general consensus that the class system is ‘dead’
• Postmodernists believe that profound social changes means that class divisions are now status divisions
• Media also means that individuals have an increasing amount of choice
• This means that there is a blurring of boundaries between higher and lower classes
• Diversity, globalisation is just for the upper classes

Question 20

The Postmodern view on the digital divide - gender

Answer 20

→Media (e.g.social media) can be seen as ways in which we express our identity and consume how others portray their identity. As the divide between males and females in the use of social media only around 7% shows that there is a similarity between genders - more choice
⇒ social media also creates a consumer identity as people identities can be primarily based on the products they buy and use, Celebrities are seen constantly advertising brands and products to their audience to invest in (it becomes the most important part of a person’s identity- even over their gender).
→the consumption of other people’s identities through media allows us to interact with different cultures allowing us to combine our elements of their cultures with our own ⇒ hybridity. This can be done through the consumption of social media and even through being “‘very’ interested in the news”.

Question 21

The Postmodern view on the digital divide - location

Answer 21

• Postmodernists believe our reality and view of the world comes from the media’s depictions
• Baudrillard calls this media-saturation in which simulacras are created
• Strinati (1995) highlights how globalisation has impacted our identity by shaping what we buy and who we are. Globalised media has created greater relations with other cultures e.g, dual hybridity
• People therefore have greater exposure to different ideas, thoughts and customs - homogenous culture is emerging despite the diversity of a postmodern society

Question 22

Age and the New Media Characteristics

Answer 22

• Boyle (2007) notes that new media are often associated with young people
• Sociologists suggest that a generation divide exists in terms of how people use the media
• Young people’s access to a greater range of new media has amplified the traditional concerns = new social anxieties
• These social anxieties can consist of how young people are accessing pornography, terrorist propaganda and bullying
• Young people being exposed to harmful and negative content online can therefore lead to too much interactivity
• Choice, technological convergence, participatory culture, digitalisation

Question 23

Class and the New Media Characteristics

Answer 23

• There is only a 4% difference between the percentage of upper class and lower class people who use a mobile phone, which suggests a collective intelligence has been created
• Digitalisation of communication is present
• Increases collective intelligence
• Economic convergence means businesses are controlled by the bigger businesses (bourgeoisie), making it very difficult for independent smaller businesses to survive
• There is only a 4% difference between the percentage of upper class and lower class people who use a mobile phone, which suggests a collective intelligence has been created
• Digitalisation of communication is present
• Increases collective intelligence
• Economic convergence means businesses are controlled by the bigger businesses (bourgeoisie), making it very difficult for independent smaller businesses to survive

Question 24

Gender and the New Media Characteristics

Answer 24

• Men were more likely than women to use email or chat rooms, and emn played more computer games on consoles such as Xbox than women did - this shows men prefer virtual and simulated media products
  which can explain why men spend 5.5 more hours on the internet than women weekly
• Women spend 7% more time looking at social media sites than men, this may be because women prefer the interactivity social media sites gives them
• This also links to to how digital media had facilitated cultural convergence - we now interact much
  more globally and via virtual networks of people rather than locally
• These gender new media statistics show the differences in the media products male and females choose to engage with, showing consume choice
• Technological convergence, interactivity, participatory culture

Question 25

Location and the New Media Characteristics

Answer 25

• Jenkins says ‘none of us can know anything, each of us can know something’
• The availability of media presents a platform everyone can suggest their ideas
• This statistic shows that collective intelligence is present, as a society we have decided to value having access to mobile phones
• Cultural convergence
• Lack of digitalisation

Question 26

Social stratification in new media usage - age

Answer 26

• Patterns of internet access and usage generally reflect and amplify existing societal patterns; in this case, the information divide between young and elderly people
• Helpser (2011) - healthy, young, well-educated people who took up broadband were more likely to be frequent internet users while those with ill health, the elderly and less educated were left behind
• These statistics suggest that there is a divide between the elderly and young, with young people having easier access to information and being more interconnected, which is an advantage in a modern society
• As a result, this creates an information hierarchy and a certain generational disconnectivity, and gives them a unique power in their access to information others cannot get
• It also creates an entirely different technological lifestyle than elderly people are used too, and so there is stratification in how society has now become less accommodating of older lifestyles - the only true way to stay connected is to increase internet usage
• Age therefore becomes a blockage to growth of identity and making unequal groups

Question 27

Social stratification in new media usage - class

Answer 27

• These statistics suggest that there is a categorisation emerging of people in different classes being given access to / having no access to the internet and is opportunities - Jones stated that the working class were the basis of this group with their manual occupations and lower educational attainment leading to less digital literacy, and 16% of households had no internet access whatsoever
• Despite having the same mobile phone access, they cannot use it in the same way
• Helpser suggested that there was new stratification being caused by the media in the creation of a digital underclass of low digital skills / literacy, low employment, low education - because the working class often have lower attainment, they are the group most affected by this
• Again, this creates an information hierarchy - Dutton and Blank in 2011 found that only 34% of those with no qualifications used the internet in comparison to 94% of those with higher education qualifications
• Therefore, social class becomes a blockade to information

Question 28

Social stratification in new media usage - gender

Answer 28

• This suggests a divide between men and women, with Li and Kirkup noting a significant difference in the type of usage that occurred between men and women
• This creates a different lifestyle system between the two genders, with women using social media more to communicate and prioritising mobile games and messaging, whereas men tend to use it more for gaming and women found themselves more targeted by advertisements
• This could also be a precursor for more women working from home and increase of the dual burden condemned by feminist theory, with women become confined to home living, but it also reflects a social stratification of the way different genders choose to communicate and utilise the internet
• For women, the gaming opportunity is about challenging norms (Royse et al); for men it is a new way of stabilising the anger of the personality and gaining control (Olson et al), and so the way each gender approaches the internet creates distinct user groups
• The social stratification for this characteristic is therefore different - there is no restriction on access, but the choices made are creating an internet divide, and so the groups are unequal in their cross-gender communication

Question 29

Social stratification in new media usage - location

Answer 29

• There is stratification of developed and developing countries - there is a false impression of a digital revolution, and therefore individuals do not have as much internet access despite their mobile phone access
• There is therefore a hierarchy being created - internet access is reserved for those in certain countries, worsening educational and health issues that already exist without this interconnectivity
• It also divides access and information across the world

Question 30

powerpoints with stats.

Answer 30

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FHZOGG7cANpj1zrPotYPVF2_jVX1dWHkgEQWGW2b9j0/edit#slide=id.g17dbbc7c967_0_61

Question 31

The significance of the new media - the cultural optimists (neophiliacs)

Answer 31

See 5 main benefits of the New Media to contemporary society:
1) More informed consumers
2) Wider choice
3) Increased user participation
4) Narrower political aspect (empowerment of people through their rights, ability to control and influence, protest against governments with the opportunity to initiate change in society
5) Increased democracy with rights to freedom and expression

Question 32

Benefit 1 - more informed consumers

Answer 32

• Consumers now have more access to information, complaints and reviews about practically anything that interests them, making them better informed and offering them greater choice than ever before - they can offer their own advice and learn from the experiences of fellow consumers
• Links to narrowing political aspect

Question 33

Benefit 2 - Wider choice

Answer 33

• There are over 500 digital terrestrial, satellite and cable TV channels and according to Netcraft there were about 260 million active websites of all kinds in September 2022, and news, information, shopping a wide range of financial transactions and social networking are now available online
• The increase in social media use has also changed how the web has enabled people to expand personal boundaries past geographical area and immediate social connections
• Increased channels of communication and interaction, enhancing or supplementing existing face-to-face interaction
• CAGE factors allow the construction of alternative identities and individuals can then become a means of expression for others
• YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter can enhance social networking and establish online communities that can bring people together from all over the world - TikTok has 750 million users worldwide

Question 34

Benefit 3 - User participation

Answer 34

• Interactive digital TV, online news sites, blogging, tweeting and citizen journalism, YouTube and social networking give consumers opportunities to participate in using and producing media content - user-generated sites like Blogger enable ordinary people, rather than experts to offer advice, spread information and share experiences, giving more power and incentive to participate
• This concept links to greater democracy in the new media

Question 35

Benefit 4 - Narrowing political aspect

Answer 35

• McNair (2006) argues that the internet means anyone, not just corporations, can set up and maintain websites and blogs which can be visited or viewed by anyone anywhere at any time, and there are greater opportunities as a result to report, criticise and comment
• Twitter, TikTok, YouTube are all opinion forums
• Users are also able to start protests using websites such as Occupy, Everyone’s Welcome, ALL OUT, Coalition of Resistance and Facebook groups - for example, Ched Evans was not allowed to train with Sheffield United Football Club in 2014 after a social media campaign against it due to him being a convicted rapist
• Media has put more power in the hands of ordinary people and make those holding power more accountable for their actions and decisions, and public outrage can bring corporate and government websites down by ‘denial of service’, cyberattacks with huge amounts of traffic to slow them
• Bloggers and other citizen journalists can majorly influence the mainstream media’s content and agenda by posting their own reports or responding to what is ignored
• George Floyd is a prominent example, as is the case of Ian Tomlinson who was a victim of police brutality at a protest in April 2009
• McNair - neither properitors or editors call the shots anymore
• The New media can mobilise people to fight against oppressive and corrupt regimes across the world, with some regimes toppled by revolutions driven in part by the speed of the internet
• Mobile phone is an important weapon in influence and change e.g. Arab Spring in 2011 and Kony 2012 (Ugandan children plight) and such examples show how the new media can be used by those wishing to protest and receive coverage outside the control of established media and media organisations

Question 36

Benefit 5 - wider democracy

Answer 36

• More protection of rights and freedoms; Arab Spring 2011 and Kony 2012, allows more participation in politics and more grassroots activism as individuals have the tools to be more informed and more involved, and can hold people to account better and protect their rights and freedoms of expression better
• More freedom of expression through creation of alternative identities and people are more able to express themselves, creating a society where more are represented and can make themselves heard - Great Thunberg, George Floyd, Just Stop Oil are all young people forcing change and getting involved in so many new and different ways to help democracy
• Murthy - the power of Twitter in shaping people’s political, social and economic lives in the Egypt protests of 2011 and in acting as a powerful news source and mobilisation tool (Arab Spring; revolt against governments where they did not have a say)
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n7Ae6DL2YMsrvdXk9aG3L4W7pSQ0XCJDUXWm6Q5tbVE/edit

Question 37

Practice 10 marker - key concepts in the New Media

Answer 37

• Wider choice; increased consumer choice - convergence and interactivity = better quality
• Informed consumers; e-commerce revolution with the growth of Amazon, Ebay etc increases choice and competition, making prices competitive
  -> Revitalising democracy - hold politicians to account; Seaton says this leads to many to many communication changing the way we do politics
• User participation - Itzoe - ‘loose and anarchic’ BLM, Make Poverty History and Hacktivist networks like Anonymous are examples of groups that have used or abused technological capabilities to highlight political issues

Question 38

Practice 10 marker

Answer 38

• Interactivity - McNair (2006) ‘information, like knowledge, is power’ - anyone can report, criticise or comment
• Individuals are producers (user participation) Seaton states the internet is generating political activism

Question 39

Cultural pessimist views of the new media

Answer 39

(essentially Marxists):
- Conglomeration - different companies owning a range of different products
- Candy Floss Culture - valueless cultural products
- Tabloidization - simplified and sensational stories

Key sociologists:
- Cornford and Robins
- Jenkins
- Seaton
- Harvey
- Turkle
- Keen

Question 40

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 1) Not-so-new Media

Answer 40

• Cornford and Robins (1999) - new media is not new; old technology such as TV and telephones are still used today for computer game consoles and Wifi
• Interactivity is also not new - people have always written to newspapers and phoned onto radio and television for many years, and so the only new thing about the new media is its speed as everything can be accessed real time - 9/11 was watched real time all around the world
• C&R suggest that what the new technologies permit is the refinement, extension and embellishment of traditional media, and the relationships between new and old media should be thought of as a remake of a classic Hollywood movie - the characters and story are the same, but the special effects, marketing and budget is larger

Question 41

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 2) Domination of media conglomerates

Answer 41

• Criticise the idea that new media is increasing the potential for ordinary people to participate more in democracy and cultural life as transnational media conglomerates in the development and control of the new media undermines media democracy
• Jenkins (2008) - most of the new media have developed because of investment from large media corporations, and the cross-media ownership started in the 1980s with technological convergence and media concentration
• Owning different types of media made developing a range of content more desirable - ‘digitalisation set the conditions for convergence, and conglomerates created the imperative’
• The internet in particular is dominated by a small number of media corporations - Microsoft has developed most of the software required for accessing the net; Comcast, the largest broadcasting and largest cable company in the world by revenue and is the US’s biggest broadband provider
• Multinational companies allow people to log on and they direct users to commercial services and adverts they endorse and so most of the commercially visible content is controlled by big entertainment, press, telecommunications and advertising companies - top 5 internet sites in the UK in 2015 were YouTube, Amazon, Ebay, Google and Facebook and the BBC was in the top 20
• Media superpowers have an advantage over individuals setting up websites - they have back catalogues, funding, expertise and links with advertising companies e.g. Comcast owns NBC Universal which produces a lot of media such as TV and radio

Question 42

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 3) Commercialisation

Answer 42

• The internet is now very commercialised as a result - millions of people use the internet to manage bank accounts, pay bills and buy services such as insurance and consumer goods and internet activities have in the past decade shifted more from educational use to commercial use
• Cornford and Robins argue that these new technologies may produce more choice for the consumer, but there are side effects, such as companies selling products and services that create consumer surveillance
• Technology such as cookies monitor and process data generated by interactive media usage, and so they segment and target future audiences to enhance profits - Marxists have grown alarmed at this commercialisation of the internet and television as it encourages materialisation, consumerism and false needs and furthers capitalist domination and control

Question 43

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 4) Reinforcing elite power

Answer 43

• Cornford and Robins are sceptical of the view new media leads to more democracy to bring social and political order - through assertive tactics such as alliances, mergers, takeovers, licensing deals, patents and copyrights, media corporations are monopolising strategic links to the new media
• Jenkins also notes that not all participants in the new media are equal - corporations and individuals with corporate media exert greater power than any individual consumer or aggregates of consumers
• Political elite power holders, such as government departments and political parties have also not seen the power of the new media delivery systems and so have constructed sophisticated and elaborate websites to dominate the internet with their worldview - ex-CIA analyst Edward Snowden claimed in 2015 that British Security services accessed private information stored on smartphones
• Media technologies are therefore mainly strengthening the power of existing elites rather than promoting alternatives, free speech or democracy, and the digital class divide contributes to this inequality as those who have less access are those with the most political grievance
• Seaton (2003) - online political involvement probably mirrors the level of ordinary people’s political involvement mirrors real-world participation
• When the net was a marginal experiment, there were more counter-cultural movements who were active, and even when the net was used to plan and mobilise the anti-globalisation protests it was just one of many strategies used
• As media corporations successfully colonised most of the net with their news, entertainment and business, minority political views and civic discourse are shifted from the margins
• Hill and Hughes - (1997) only 6% of web pages are dedicated to political issues - challenge the view also that the cyberspace has content that supports the alternative minority political issues; 78% of political opinion expressed on American websites were mainstream

Question 44

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 5) Decline in the quality of popular culture

Answer 44

• Increased digitalisation has led to a decline of popular culture - Harvey (2008) suggest digital television may have dramatically increased the choice of channels for viewers but this has caused a dumbing down of popular culture such as TV channels using cheap imported content, films, repeats, sport, reality TV and gambling
• Harvey argues that TV culture transmits a candy floss culture that speaks to everyone in general and no one in particular - both the BBC and ITV have experienced tabloidization over the past 10 years because they now have to compete with Sky and other channels, resulting in a decline of documentaries and news and an increase in reality TV - the choice is also all the same
• There is cultural imperialism

Question 45

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 6) Lack of regulation

Answer 45

• Sociologists and politicians are becoming increasingly favourable of state regulation of the new media
• All perspectives are represented on the internet and this easy access to pornography, bigoted sites or terrorist groups that takes freedom of speech to far and the increased use of the new media by the young but has given rise to a new set of problems for society including global cybercrime and cyberbullying, online trolling or minority groups and sexual grooming of children
• Some commentators believe that the irresponsible use of the internet is a price worth paying for the free expression and exchange of information provided and internet controls is largely outside of government regulation because ISPs operate outside the UK

Question 46

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 7) Alone together

Answer 46

• Turkle (2011) - new media users are ‘cyborgs’ because they are all connected to each other, regardless of where they are through their devices - people now live full time on the web and are devoted to their communication devices, particularly phones, which are constantly checked for notifications
• However, she also points out that although new media increases interconnectivity it also creates greater anxiety and isolation - we enjoy continual connection but rarely have each other’s full attention - more online than real life friends as they are ties that preoccupy rather than bind and when we misplace our phones we feel anxious
• Livingstone (2009) in a similar analysis argues that children today communicate more with the outside world than their own family and parents often have to use social media to communicate with their children

Question 47

Cultural pessimist views of the new media - 8) New Media as chaos

Answer 47

• Keen (2008) - very critical of the internet and other new media aspects he calls chaotic, as it has no governing moral code and truth is selective and subjective to change

He made 4 specific criticisms of the new media
1) Social networking sites like Facebook and blogging do not contribute to the democratic process in any way as they are merely vehicles for narcissistic self-broadcasting and he claims they exist purely for individuals to indulge in shameless self-promotion
2) User-generated sites like Wikipedia are open to abuse and bias, and consequently they are unreliable sources of information and it has created a ‘cut and paste’ generation of plagiarism and intellectual thieves
3) Much of the output of media outlets such as Twitter and and blogs is unchecked and consequently uninformed opinion, lies and trolling are the norm, rather than considered analysis and expertise
4) The internet is creating cultural illiteracy - Keen claims that young people are less actively engaged with researching the world around them because the web gives them easy access to ‘facts’ - young people have shorter attention spans and poor problem-solving skills

Question 48

Evaluation of the debate

Answer 48

• Both exaggerate how far the media is being transformed - the last two decades have seen both continuity and evolutionary, not revolutionary, change
• TV is still the most popular medium, and newspapers still sell well despite fears that it would be replaced by the internet
• Books are also being sold at good rates despite Kindle and ebooks, and a small number of very powerful media companies are still control both traditional and new media