final script

To begin with I guess we should explain what WE-media is. We-media is the form of media which lets anybody broadcast or share the news that they feel is important to them and the wider public. Websites like youtube allow people to share any content (within reason) with as many people as they want.

The two specific media areas we have decided to study are social networking and films/video. Social networking has been transformed by the concept of We-media. Social networking by its very name is a concept which attempts to gather everybody in and unite them through the internet- Facebook is at the front line of social networking with an estimated 'population' of 600 million! We-media is reporting and showing news/events and of course social networking has been galvanised by this and has helped to galvanise we-media. Both concepts 'bounce off' each other to improve individual and aspects.

Films and videos is the second media group we have studied.  Just like social networking, films and videos are now easily shared by using the concept of WE-media. Youtube lets anybody with an internet connection view videos that have been uploaded from all around the world. Videos and feature films (broken up in some cases into parts) are accessible to anyone by just searching the internet- there are sites dedicated to showing episodes of 'South Park' and 'the Simpsons' (amongst others).

Contemporary media theories and practice answers are the final 2 parts in this script.

Henry Jenkins theory about participatory culture applies heavily to WeMedia as a culture and especially to social networking and video. Henry Jenkins argues that participatory "Fan cultures" have been around long before the web but the web has served to expand those already existing and also create new ones.

This applies to WeMedia because it doesn't only apply to "fan cultures". It can apply to any group of people who express themselves through the web. For instance online forums, Facebook and Facebook groups, wikipages, youtube videos and video responses to those videos or of course fan cultures.

This also allows almost anyone access to almost any collective culture. For example movie making was previously only accessible to those with a large budget and support from producers.
In 2004 Mark Zukerberg and some friends of his independently founded Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard university. This social networking phenomena now houses the information of 600 million people and allows people to find, add, message, chat to, upload pictures of and play games with All of their friend, relatives and basically anyone hat they have ever met.

 Question 1. What are we-media?
As 'we' is a pronoun which includes everybody I have come to the conclusion that WE media is the term to describe the changing attitudes in media and ultimately the way that we use it.


Media has as an entity sometimes been seen as a 'dictatorship' because it hasnt always given the reading and viewing public a chance to look at the news and information for themselves.

We media cant be defined because everybody views it differently.

Sources like blogging and social networking are key to this idea because they let people publish what they want to who they want.

 2. Where/how has we-media evolved?

We-media has emerged from media outlets like newspapers and television which form the basis of media and journalism- both forms help big news corporations broadcast news to the general public.

We-media is basically just an advancement of media but the difference - the key difference is that we-media encourages people to broadcast whatever news they want in whatever ways they want. 

 I believe that people want to share news on a small scale e.g. just personal news to their friends via facebook and twitter but as we-media has evolved so has the level that people now broadcast news.

BBC and Sky news are now not the only news channels- now there are websites e.g. news now and live feeds which have constant drips of news to the users of the site.

3.Is contemporary media more democratized?


It has been argued that there is a more democratized contemporary media since the introduction of we-media.

It has become more democratized because now anybody can create and share anything on the internet (whether this is a good thing or not is debatable). As Dan Gillmor explained in his book 'we-media' 'the audience is now the producer  and this has implications on the way media is produced and received by the audience'.

Before it was only possible for people to get the news and media from the biggest companies e.g. sky news for news and warner brothers for films but now anybody can produce their own material and if put out into the public eye correctly the possible audience can be extremely vast especially if put onto outlets like facebook which has a massive audience of around 200million.  Channel 4 have also tried to democratized there points on small but effective blogs on their websites, however they use major figure heads in these blogs such as Jon Snow and his 'Snow Blog'. this is this a way in which channel 4 are trying to make it look as though they are making their medium more democratized.