The Impact of New Media

A Level Media Studies

 Key Questions

 Has new media democratised the production of media texts

by shifting the control of media content away from large
media institutions?
 Has new media changed the way media texts are consumed
and what are the social implications for this?
 Has new media technology provided new cross-cultural,
global media texts that communicate across national and
social boundaries?
 How active or interactive are consumers of new media and
how significant is this in terms of power?
 How has new/digital media impacted on traditional media
productions and consumption?
 To what extent does new media escape some of the
constraints of censorship that traditional media encounters?
 How is new media interacting with, using and changing
traditional media platforms?
 Home
Cable,
compute
satellite &
r&
Video digital TV
games
and DVD consoles
Mobile
phones &
their
Portable
camcord
The Digital convergence
with other
ers Revolution media
photography
blog
& videos
MP3
Emai The
l world
wide
podcas web webca
ts Social ms
networking
 New/Digital Media
UTOPIAN DYSTOPIAN
 Del Sola Polle (1977)  Habermas (1991)
 Suggests new media will  Argues that media texts
facilitate a positive media should provide a space for
world
 A wider range of media citizens to debate and
texts can be produced that criticise government
meet the needs of many actions & form public
more groups in society. opinion.
 Provides individual citizens  Suggests new media
with the capacity to outlets produce similar
produce/publicise texts sorts of representations
themselves. that focus primarily on
 This facilitates the growth celebrity and trivia.
of different media
representations.
 Has new media
democratised the
production of media
texts by shifting the
control of media content
away from large media
institutions?
 Alternative Media Forms
 New media technologies facilitate small-scale
media productions.
 This provides for alternative views that challenge
dominant ideologies/values of society.

The Royal Commission on the Press (1977) defined

alternative media as:
 Dealing with the opinion of small minorities

 Expressing attitudes hostile to widely held beliefs

 Espousing views or dealing with subjects not

given regular coverage by publications generally

available at newsagents.
Look at the homepages of the three
websites below. In what ways do they
provide an alternative media space for
those wanting to challenge dominant
ideologies in contemporary society?
 Alternative media forms
 Some critical perspectives suggest that alternative media
are run in a more egalitarian & democratic way.
 They reduce the cost of media production.
 New media texts can challenge the consumerist norms of a
capitalist society.
 They may create ideological disruption & disturbance in
relation to values and ideas about areas such as
gender/sexuality, religion etc.
 Alternative websites provide ‘citizen journalism’ – allowing
ordinary people to give their own alternative versions of
dominant news stories.
 In doing so, they politicise the repression of events &
information produced in mainstream news, drawing
attention to its selectivity.
 However, ‘citizen journalists’ are not necessarily restrained
by professional or institutional codes of conduct.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/2
7/bbc-mark-thompson-murdoch-mactaggart
 Rupert Murdoch and BSkyB
 “BSkyB is too powerful and threatens to "dwarf" the BBC and its
competitors.”
 “News Corp, in effect controlled by the Murdoch family, now
enjoys unprecedented industry power in the UK. News Corp owns
39% of Sky and is in the process of buying the part of the
broadcaster it does not already own.”
 "a concentration of cross-media ownership that would not be
allowed in the United States or Australia".

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/13/rupert-murdoch-
us-digital-newspaper
 Murdoch sees the iPad as a potential lifesaver in terms of
its reach among the young and its ability to attract
subscriptions.
 Homework
 Has new media changed
the way media texts are
consumed?

 What are the social

implications for this?
 Web 2.0
 A second generation of web based
material which facilitates mobile
broadband and wireless connections.
 Web based communities such as social
networking sites and wikis.
 These facilitate collaboration and
sharing of user generated content.
 Posting comments on websites,
uploading videos, photos and music
and commenting on others’
contributions.
 Web 2.0

 Web 2.0’s emphasis was on...

 Interactivity
 User participation
 Dynamic content – content that is not fixed but
shifting, changing and constantly reconstructed.
 Freedom – for audiences and individuals to
produce, consume & engage with a wide range of
new texts.
 To allow audiences to produce their own content.
 MySpace, Friends Reunited, Facebook, YouTube
 Convergence
 Interconnectivity of media platforms
 Greater levels of interactivity
 Opening boundaries between
producers and consumers
 Social networking
 3D TV
 Homework

 Has new media technology

provided new cross-
cultural, global media texts
that communicate across
national and social
boundaries?
 Globalisation
An important factor in the age of communication
when the global sales of film, TV and media
products, along with the internet, bring people in
developing countries into direct contact with
Western media products.
Distribution is facilitated by satellite and the

internet, enabling communications to travel from

one side of the globe to the other instantaneously.
It enables events that are taking place in distant

countries to be presented to us on our TVs and the

internet live (9/11 coverage)
 Globalisation
 According to Giddens (2003) we live in a
‘runaway world’ where cultures,
economies and politics appear to merge
across national boundaries.
 Significantly, TV consumption merges, so
that TV programmes such as Friends,
Sex and the City, Grey’s Anatomy etc
and channels such as MTV and CNN are
watched all over the world.
 Cultural Imperialism
 The USA dominates world media with 85% of the global
film market and 68% of the television market.

 A cultural-imperialism perspective argues therefore that

American values and ideologies are imposed upon the rest
of the world through media texts.

 Putnam (1997) suggests that the US government

prioritised media for support as an important export
industry that promotes both US values and US goods.

 In 2007, Apple computers were not just advertised in

trailers preceding films but also through product placement
in films such as ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’, ‘Night at the
Museum’ and ‘Transformers’.
India’s biggest
media
conglomerate –
Zee TV (now
available on 4
continents)

Challenge to cultural imperialism…

The success of the Indian film & TV
industries that have taken advantage
of the Asian Diaspora
 Homework
 How active or interactive are
consumers of new media and
how significant is this in terms
of power?

 How has new/digital media

impacted on traditional media
productions and consumption?
 How active or interactive are
consumers of new media and
how significant is this in
terms of power?
 Social Networking - Facebook
 Launched 2004
 Has taken social networking to another level.
 Turned it into an interactive platform
 Allows its page creators to interact with other
online users..
 But also, play games, raise funds, organise
events, post videos etc etc.
 In America – myhomeworkNOW.com accounts are
being linked with facebook accounts.
 Students will be able to see school
announcements, alerts, and classroom
assignments directly through their facebook
account.
 Homework!
 Make a list of all the facebook tools
and applications available to you.

 How interactive is your facebook

experience?
 How has new/digital media
impacted on traditional media
productions and
consumption?
 Technological Determinist
argument
 Technology influences and dictates the nature of society.
 The impact of new/digital media is so profound that is has
changed the historical, social, economical and political
context of the society in which it was produced.
 Castells (1999) emphasises that the contemporary internet
society is focused around networks and flows of information
that disregard the constraints of time and space.
 Eg. Social network sites provide a network over which
information flows between groups of friends.
 The information flows without friends actually meeting.
 The social networking website provides an imagined
community of participants who are not restrained by time
and space.
 Similarly, players in an online internet game are not
restricted to players who live near them, but can play with
people in other countries, unregulated by time restraints.
 On the other hand…
 Technological determinist arguments are often
challenged.
 MacKay (2001) stresses the importance of the
way in which technology is utilised & incorporated
into society.
 Eg. The way in which the personal computer and
internet have been incorporated into home and
family life.
 Although internet and social networking
phenomenon offer global interaction, they often
have a strong local focus.
 MySpace still has regional networks
 However…
 Facebook
 Mark Zuckerberg, 2009

 “the site is growing beyond regional networks and networks will no

longer be part of the privacy settings.”

 “As Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have
millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the
best way for you to control your privacy.”

 “The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks

completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you
can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your
friends, or everyone.”

 “We're adding something that many of you have asked for — the
ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you
create or upload. In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made
by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by
combining some settings.”
The BBC iplayer
 An internet radio television service
 Went live December 2007, updated 2008 and again in 2010
 The next generation iplayer (Sept 2010) brings integration
with various social networking sites to the TV on-demand
service.
 Deals with Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo are already in place,
with more likely to follow.
 iPlayer users will be asked to integrate their accounts with the
BBC Online site.
 Then every time they sign in and use the iPlayer, they will
also be connected to the social networks they use.
 This will enable the BBC to see what they and their friends
are watching or listening to.
 Virgin media
Fetch
3View TV

BT Vision
Freesat

Wii
Freeview

Playstation 3
Mobile phones

X-box 360
 Iplayer controversy
 The BBC iplayer and its website are funded by
money obtained from TV owner’s licence fees
 Some argue that this gives them an unfair
advantage over commercial producers of online
material who have to seek advertising to fund
themselves.
 The BBC – “web content must be free from
advertising in order to be consistent with our public
service remit.”
 Others argue it is unfair that television users are
paying for content that web-users can access for
free.
 Homework
 To what extent does new
media escape some of the
constraints of censorship that
traditional media encounters?

 How is new media interacting

with, using and changing
traditional media platforms?
 To what extent does new
media escape some of the
constraints of censorship that
traditional media encounters?
 Censorship
 GossipReport on the internet
 Changing media landscape – what
was once private is now in the public
sphere of the internet
 Facebook
 MySpace
 Privacy & censorship
 The above three sites operate
different levels of control
 How is new media interacting
with, using and changing
traditional media platforms?
Mobile Phones