Marxism and Pluralism

Developments in new/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? 

New and digital media, often referred to as “the most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burkes) signifies the starting point of what many people interpret to be a new form of democracy and equality however, there is still a proportion of society who trust an adverse concept of the developments in new and digital media is actually hindering the path to impartiality with an elite class holding power rather than empowering the audience.

As Marxist’s view the media as a tool used by ruling bodies to maintain a class divided society, a Marxist perspective would argue that the so-called “information revolution” has done little to benefit the audiences or to subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a “great leveler” (Krotoski, 2012) as many have claimed, it has merely helped to reinforce the status quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news website in the UK by a considerable margin is the ‘Mail Online’, which receives more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly – with forecasts that it will make £100 million or more in digital revenues in the next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a Conservative, right-wing perspective on key issues around gender, sexuality and race, and audiences appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Moir, wrote a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately in 2009, there were Twitter and Facebook protests but, ultimately, they did not change the editorial direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper.

Furthermore, it may be considered that rather than the audience being more powerful with the developments of new and digital media, audiences are actually being dumbed down. Andrew Keen likened the Internet to “a million monkeys typing nonsense” in his book ‘The cult of the amateur’, implying that the audiences produce an abundance of inaccurate information. An example of this would be how the website, Wikipedia, allows anyone to edit and develop any information, which has all the possibilities of being nonsense, especially with “38% of UK pupils aged 9-19 never question[ing] the accuracy of online information”: audiences may believe completely inaccurate information. Moreover, audiences may not choose to consume the wide variety of information available and actually choose to continue consuming uninformative material. Recently, the Guardian released an article, stating that the number of young viewers watching TV is continuously decreasing due to the Internet and other forms of new and digital media being significantly more convenient to use. With a huge variety of entertainment being converged in single devices, it shows that since audiences can instantaneously access such media, they would more likely select a more compelling side of the media, leading to the dumbing down and disempowerment of the audiences.

Another form of dumbing down that the audience is susceptible to is the large amounts of pornography available online. Despite a great proportion being censored or put under a paywall to not only monetise the industry but to shield this adult content from the young audience, is still not enough as 57% of 9-19 year olds have come into content with pornography and 38% of this figure is due to online pop ups. This shows that this adult content is becoming available very easily through the developments in new and digital media which injects wrong ideologies into young minds such as the dehumanisation and objectification of females in particular. A Marxist point of view would support the fact that pornography actually makes the audience lose the power they hold with the new accessibility of pornographic material.

However, a pluralist, who would support the notion that we live in a classless society and the audience holds a great deal of power, would argue that audiences are not passive users of the media and therefore have the ability to choose whether they “conform, accommodate, or reject” (Gurevitch et al) any ideologies conveyed through the media. Moreover, this “internet revolution” has given the opportunity to access the news and be aware of the current events occurring all over the world, proving the great power society has purely due to the fact that people are given the right to know current affairs. One of the biggest stories of 2011 was the Arab Spring story where citizens from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and several other countries, began revolting against heavy dictatorship. As some of the countries such as Syria, banned foreign journalists from working in the country, causing foreign news institutions relying on user generated content (UGC). UGC are footage that bystanders have recorded and with the developments in new and digital media, audiences have the ability to produce their own news by publishing videos on sites such as You Tube. UGC gives a great deal of power to the people who produce the clips as well as people who consume the clips: by putting journalists and readers on an equal platform with advancements in new and digital media, there is more democratization happening which conclusively leads to Rushbriger’s theory of the “mutualisation on news”.

Additionally, pluralists would see the wide array of choices and options of available media to be a key factor of what undeniably empowers the audience. With over 85% of the UK having access to the Internet, one of the most predominant forms of new and digital media, the audience would be able to discover world wide content, something that has become available to us with advancements in technology and media. It is often said that knowledge is power and so, the Internet has become “an application that will user in the information age” verifying that information is a valuable commodity that leads to knowledge and power.  Despite some sites conveying very radical and controversial theories, the wide variety allows for objectivity and neutrality as the Internet permits diversity in opinions.  An example of how the Internet supports objectivity and neutrality would be a film review site such as rotten tomatoes. The website exposes all reviews of films to the public, whether they are positive or negative, leaving it for the audience to create their own judgement of the film.

However, this massive choice of news and information available can be thought as another way to dumb us down as the excess of news to some extent, drowns us and audiences are unable to decipher what information is important and what is not. This can be interpreted as the elite's way of keeping the public within the status-quo making us unaware about the dominant ideologies that the news injects into us as well as completely concealing the biased nature of the news. Alain de Botonn stated that religion was what once guided us to find out what is important however, the media has taken over this role and guides us rather than religion but as the news makes neutrality impossible, the media cannot accurately advise us and it actually misguides us. Especially with there no longer being a market for good stories, we are helpless and exposed to only the negativity. For example, negative stories about the NHS are constantly being reported but the stories of how valuable the NHS is to society is hardly ever revealed, conclusively making us as narrow-minded the news institutions.

It can be inferred that the developments in new and digital media strip the audience of their power as it makes it easier for the elite to inject their dominant ideologies into the passive audiences. Baudrillard’s theory of hyper reality posed a theory that the audiences are unable to distinguish reality from simulacrum which finally causing society to be completely blinded by the reality that those at the top present to them. Pareto’s law of “ a minority of producers always serves a majority of consumers” illustrates that despite the middle to lower class society being the majority, they are still controlled by the minority of upper class.  A modern example of Baudrillard’s hyper reality theory is Disneyland, with its realistic civilization in Main Street and its life-like nature, which accentuates only the fantastical aspects of reality. This desired lifestyle causes the park visitors to spend more money in the park whilst completely obscuring the commercialization of the park. This mirrors how the media conceals their attempts to transmit ideologies into the audiences, whether it is political or social.

To conclude, there are many points supporting both sides of the argument, proving that audiences’ consumption and production of media has possibilities of provoking empowerment as well as disempowerment, ultimately displaying that developments in new and digital media can have many different affects on the audience.