Audience power essay (947 words)

Audience power essay

“The internet has given audiences much more power than ever before.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? 

I do not believe that audiences have been given much more power than they used to have, as there is still not much they can do in terms of media. However, audiences have been given some power over the media with the creation of Prosumers and social media outlets that we can post anything on. Although audiences have some power, big media companies still have the majority of influence over media. In this essay I will explore the changes and influences of media in the present day.

The Internet has changed the music industry a lot and the consumer has benefited from this. Some advantages of the internet for the consumer are: You Tube where you can listen to and watch music videos, streaming which can be done on various websites and apps, bands/artist can now be discovered online and successful artists are chosen by audiences so anyone can become famous, it is now cheaper and much more accessible. Apps like Sound Cloud and Spotify are new ways that are free for users to listen to their favourite artists and idols through. This is also a way for 'Bedroom Bands' to be seen by record labels and get their music out into the world as you can post your own music as well. Another way for artists to be discovered is on You Tube where you can post covers of your favourite music but also create your own music.

The disadvantages of this are huge for both the consumer and producer. Even though music is more accessible and cheaper now a days artists are getting less money. This is a result of the consumer only listening to music on apps and sites like Spotify and You Tube; by doing this the producer gets less and less money. If this carries on eventually all your favourite artists will make less quality music, possibly be forced to stop making music all together. From 2013 to 2014 music sales in the U.S. dropped by 5% and even more for the years after this.

Another industry that has had a huge increase in audience power is the film and TV industry. An advantage of this is that it is much more accessible. With more sites to stream from like Netflix and Show Box People are having to pay less and less for cinemas and theatres.  Another option would be illegal download; sites like 123 Movies and Cartoon HD anyone can watch movies and series that have just come out whenever they please. Netflix and Amazon Prime are amazing examples of sites you can subscribe to and watch movies and programmes as soon as they come out but also do their own original series. This allows people more variety for their watching pleasures.

There are many disadvantages of this as well. Binge watching can take up a lot of time but is now encouraged with the amount of series on these sites. Before you know it you have stayed awake for days at a time to watch a series like Breaking Bad and ignored your work that has been piling up. Another disadvantage is that staring for too long at a small or really close screen can greatly affect your eyesight for the worse and harm your retinas. Finally companies have been producing less interesting products and reboot a lot of material as all these 'Free sites' have been decreasing sales and disallowing companies from making money. This has an affect as it means they are forced to either stop making content or make content with less quality that is less interesting.

 The final industry that has changed greatly in terms of audience power is the news. There are many advantages for this. Firstly, anyone can now be the most important journalist in the world. This is because with the creation of sites like Twitter you can tell the world what you saw or what has happened as soon as it happens. Also you can video an event or issue that is happening and broadcast it live. This is called Citizen Journalism. Secondly news is now a lot cheaper to access and you don't have to pay for a paper as any news in the paper is re-created on a website as well. Big news companies like The Sun now have to sell their papers for free.

However, there are many disadvantages to this. No one will ever truly know whether what they are reading is fake news or not. An example of this is when some teenagers in Latvia made up fake news about a black actor supposedly supporting trump. This was entirely untrue but caused a huge rise in trump votes and a huge increase in their bank accounts. A final disadvantage is that even though people have more power big companies have the most power as they choose who is listened to and who's opinions are respected. An example of this is a journalist, Tim Poole, was ignored for most of his journalism career on Twitter but people finally started to respect him when the company decided to put a blue tick against his profile. This is a sign of verification.

In conclusion I came into this essay believing that all audiences had much more power, however after some well deserved research I now have the understanding that big companies still have the majority of all influences on media. Finally, audiences may still have some power but what they decide to do with it may decide they fate of many artists and actors’ careers and lives. Even though audiences have influence over the media, it will never compare to the immense power and influence big companies and producers have.