Essay Plan

Essay Title: Developments in new and digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

Introduction:  Re-write the question in my own words and give my judgement on it.

Paragraph 1: this paragraph will be a major extent about it being a major empowerment of the audiences in these developments. First point is about twitter- how it gives freedom to audiences in terms of giving them freedom of speech where they are able to formulate and present their opinion. I can mention the 2 step flow theory in this paragraph, I can also mention pluralism and how there isn’t just one opinion that is believed but everyone has their choice to choose what they say and do, and this empowers them in things they want to.

Paragraph 2: this paragraph carries on from the previous paragraph where freedom is evident in the creation of websites and blogs, where these two are major examples of User-Generated content, which is also known as ‘We-media’ as it is created by users, who are able to create and present their own opinion is the way they chose to.

Paragraph 3: Facebook revolutions –the ‘Arab springs’, Egypt/Tunisia/Libya, these are all examples of how the internet cannot be censored.

Paragraph 4: This is the first point arguing to the fact that the audience hasn't been empowered but are forced to believe the dominant ideologies of the main media giants. For example, Google is a major media institution, which is associated with the internet and being deep rooted in it with advertising throughout Google. In terms of Paretto’s Law, which states ‘the majority is controlled is controlled by the minority’, is quite accurate as major institutions like Google, Disney, news corporation are in control of most parts of the media.

Paragraph 5: In this paragraph mention Andrew Keen and his book “How the Internet is killing our culture”.à This book presents that the major institutions have kept control and given a choice to audiences but they all follow their beliefs and ideologies. For example, Rupert Murdoch and his beliefs are consistent through his companies and their mediums.

Judgement/conclusion: conclude and summarise all the points and give final judgement.