MEST 3 Question

MEST 3 Question

Does your case study suggest that new and digital media have had a positive impact by offering audiences more diverse range of values and ideologies?

It is evident that new and digital media have offered a diverse range of values and ideologies to audiences through platforms via the news and the music industry. The benefits and drawbacks of this will be examined in these case studies to offer the exact effect that such technological advances has had on those that consume it. In terms of the news, the rise of a diverse range of values and ideologies has encouraged citizen journalism. Within the music industry, a diverse range of values and ideologies has been the result of music reaching historically harder demographics. However, there are several drawbacks to this. In the news there is lack of legitimacy of several news articles and within the music industry hegemony is still apparent. 

Citizen journalism as an outcome of new and digital media has enabled audiences to engage with a diverse range of values through the news industry as this has fuelled there to be more evidence in the conviction of many crimes. Video footage as a result of the convergence on smartphones has evoked a diverse range of values due to there being proof of situations such as crime against people of ethnic minorities. Instead of perhaps a one-sided story from officers, police brutality against victims such as Eric Garner has been captured and viewed by many audiences which has helped there to be a range of values as activists across the world have come together to form a BlackLivesMatter campaign. Due to the video footage alongside news reports, an audience are able to witness the cruelty of such actions which exemplifies written news reports and showing perhaps that new and digital media is indeed “The Great Leveller” (Aleks Krotoski). From citizen journalism being such a helping hand towards the authenticity of news reports, it has caused audiences to have more of a diverse range of values and prioritise the importance of condemning the mistreatment of others. 

However, new and digital media has also become an antagonist in aspects that audiences are unable to differentiate whether news articles are real or fake. This has become very significant in numerous news stories about such political issues revolved around the general election in the USA 2016. Scandals revolved around Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton has some what fuelled the presidents neo-meaning of “fake news” as one of the news coverage on the Trumps presidency involved a false picture of his inauguration. Here, an audience were presented with a more filled crowd which had been photoshopped in comparison to the real picture where not as many had attended. This led to a wrong set of values and ideologies as audiences began to think that Trump was a popular president proving that “web pages and blogs are like a million monkeys typing nonsense” (Andrew Keen). The change and manipulation of the news removes culpability and creates gratuity due to no regulation and therefore suggesting that this somewhat has a negative impact on audiences and their values. 

The music industry however, has been a great platform in helping audiences to form their identity and create ideologies due to it's ability to reach a wide majority of consumers. Atlantic record artists that have introduced a political dynamic in their music such a Joyner Lucas who released the song "I'm Not Racist" which went viral and gained 4 million views in a space of two days. This helped to form a diverse range of ideologies as this contained an African-American male and Caucasian male tackling their differences  with sports Levi-Strauss's theory of binary oppositions. The outcome of this has not only caused their to be diverse range of ideologies within the music video but also in user generated content from audiences that have made a reaction video on YouTube to this. This encourages the idea that "the internet is an empowering tool...an exciting revolutionary prospect" (Al Gore) as audiences have been able to benefit widely to a number of values and ideologies.

However, the music industry could somewhat be seen not to offer a more diverse range of values and ideologies to audiences as "The Big Three" still dominate the music industry. "The Big Three" contain the music labels Universal Music Group which has a market share of 29.85%, Sony Music Entertainment which has a market share of 29.29% and Warner Music Group which has a market share of 19.13% which proves the idea that "A minority of (media) producers always serve a majority of consumers" ("Pareto's Law"). A hegemonic view could be applied here as music labels such as Atlantic Records which is a part of Sony dominate the music charts meaning that niche artists that could beneficially contribute to society will not have a chance to popularise their music. This does not provide audiences with diverse range of ideologies as artists such as Childish Gambino, who is apart of the record label Island Records (apart of Universal Records), has recently released a song named "This Is America" that has collated 162 million views. This is significantly more than artists such as J-Jon who is also a political artist but collated a lot less views. This is a prime example of how audiences may not be able to be positively impacted by more diverse range of values and ideologies?

In conclusion, I believe that a diverse range of values and ideologies has impacted an audience more positively than negatively. New and digital media has been beneficial in numerous ways, one being that audiences are able to have a collective identity and therefore can "be alone together". This has helped many consumers through the news and the music industry that felt that they had no voice. The #MeToo campaign and #BlackLivesMatter campaign has helped consumers to project their abuse/issues with hierarchy and given them a sense of self. As evident in my essay, there are also many disadvantages of this such as lack of legitimacy and hegemony however, in my opinion the positives out-weigh the negatives in many ways.