“Digital Media have, in many ways changed how we consume media products” who do you think benefits most – producers or audiences?

With the revolution of the internet, how people consume and receive media products/services has changed rapidly. The internet is used globally by millions of people, which makes it easier for producers to reach a mass audience. In some aspects this can be seen as an advantage for producers, however with so many people accessing the internet on a daily basis, security problems arise. Audiences also benefit, as they can search for anything at one click, but with the internet making it easier for people to communicate it could be argued that rather that helping us the internet is ‘threatening’ as Sherry Turkle puts it. With audiences being able to upload information and pictures themselves, they can to be considered as producers, and therefore audiences predominantly benefit from the Digital Media.

Newspapers were one of the very first mediums to provide society with information. Since then they have not lost their popularity to the internet. Newspaper producers have had to keep up to date with this technological change, and have done so by providing online services where audiences can read their newspapers, with a fee of £1 or £2 for a month. However this still hasn’t made enough of a difference to their revenue. Most of the information provided via the web is free, which makes it harder for websites The Times to gain subscribers. This further heightens the newspapers inability to battle with web producers. On the other hand, websites such as www.blogger.com enable online producers to distribute their content, which empowers them and opens job opportunities for them. Producers of media products such as music videos can easily promotes their products to users of the web through www.youtube.com resulting in more people being aware of their products, and hopefully more sales for producers.

However the adverse affect of this is that producers are faced with problems such as censorship and regulation, and with their products reaching people on a global scale, the problem worsens. Facebook launches in 2004 by a student names Mark Zuckerberg, the website was initially intended for Harvard students, so that they can stay connected to one another. This didn’t last long, as other universities were also signing up to Facebook, and now there are over 40,000 million users just in the USA. Showing just how much of a phenomenon it has now become. Facebook allows people to upload information and pictures, anywhere, anytime. Though this helps users socialise, it also can be a way to exploit people. Though the minimum age a user must be to sign up to Facebook is 13, many younger users still have Facebook. About 2 years ago, a 17 year old, had invited people to a small gathering at her house via Facebook, however hundreds turned up and trashed her whole house. Also Facebook will soon be adding a panic button on their website, which acts as an alert for users to inform Facebook of anyone who may be a threat to them. This in itself shows that with so much freedom on Facebook, as liberating as it may seem, it does raise issues about how safe people are online.

The ability to update news as soon as possible has provided sufficient support for the wikileaks website. The website hit the news back in 2010 for its exposure of the government’s actions. Asange (creator of wikileaks) was arrested last year, however this caused great frenzy amongst the public, as they felt that he was exposing the government’s wrongful actions and in result of that he was being unfairly arrested. People became aware of the government’s hidden secrets, which allowed people to see how their country was being run in a new light.

Audiences, on the other hand, can be seen as the biggest winners of the revolution of the Digital Media. Other than issues revolving around security, audiences use the internet in a way to express themselves. Twitter launches in 2006 and has grown rapidly since. Today almost 600 tweets are made per second. Celebrities are the common reason for people to join Twitter. ‘Ordinary people’ get the change to feel close to their favourite celebrities. In some sense, it could be said that this breaks the role of a hierarchy and it’s a place where people can just be normal.
Though illegal downloading is one of the reasons to why music companies are losing money, its one of the most common actions carried out by users. It makes audiences receive content for free, and there are many websites which make this happen. Furthermore consumers are able to shop online, which gets rid of the hassle to physically go out and buy items. News on topics such as animals, celebrities, trends, government, etc can be found at the click of one button, and better, for free. Rolling news, keeps updating internet users and unlike before, they don’t have to pay for a newspaper to read about it.

Though many advantages could be suggests, it could be debated that sites such as Facebook, MSN Messenger and twitter create an isolated society. Sherry Turkle stated in her recent book “Alone Together” that Facebook creates an illusion which makes us think that it enables us to communicate better, however in reality it puts us in a ‘cyber reality’ which is a “poor imitation of the real world”.