New Media Audiences

The contemporary media environment has shifted dramatically in regards to the production, dissemination and reception of information. In terms of ‘audience’ media consumption, that shift has precipitated a move towards a complex mediascape where individuals now have a huge amount of influence over what media they engage with and when, or how often – in effect rendering them no longer ‘audiences’ but what Axel Bruns calls “prod-users”. Lievrouw and Livingstone address this shift from the perspective of traditional media modes of operation towards one where its focus is on ‘mediation’ – I will look at this in more detail in a future post.

With the arrival of new media technology, specifically the internet and the development of Web 2.0, people are now enabled and encouraged to seek out and furthermore question information in a much less traditional manner than before. This is through offering forums and spaces where public discussions and debates not only take place, but are also recorded in their entirety and displayed for anyone who is interested to see. This transparency is a vital key to the longevity of a system whose goals are to host and publish open discourses on just about every topic as it exemplifies the level of inclusion that applies to all users, not just the creators.

Charles Leadbetter identifies a growing social desire for explicit control over our own media diets. He summarises this social development:
In the we-think economy people don’t just want services and goods delivered to them. They also want tools so that they can take part in places in which to play share, debate with others.
Web 2.0 offers Internet users the facilities through which they are able to participate in a variety of online communities. Different platforms available through the Web 2.0 services vary according to user behaviour and expectations of that platform. For example, blogs are designed around contribution, of both the blog owner and its readership; social networks are designed to do exactly that: to network people, to connect them. Leadbetter states that “for sustained creative collaboration to take off” another tool is needed: at present that tool is the wiki. The power of the wiki lies in the power of the collective. What wiki’s allow, is for people to co-operate with the goal of “summaris[ing] a debate or amass[ing] a body of information and creat[ing] documents with a collective author.” This change in approach has seen massive growth with the arrival of Web 2.0 platforms; blogs, networking sites and, of course, Wikipedia. With Wikipedia, users are automatically placed in a position of authority, asserting this new produser approach for its users and enabling them to participate fully in the activities taking place within it.

The tone of the media is shifting (or has shifted, really) – people don’t like being told anymore, they want to find and then decide for themselves. They want to participate and engage and make sure that they are not being duped as a result of hidden interests. With this shift comes a changing face for ‘audiences’, one where they are respected for their individuality and knowledge and not talked at in ways which are designed to relieve them of their time and money.