JACK ESSAY QUESTION

How far can the media in 2011 be considered to be democratic?

Democracy is a system of when people get to express their opinions using freedom of speech, in government specifically the public is allowed to vote on their representative. In Media terms this means that the "grassroots journalists"and home video makers can influence the media and distribute these different forms of we media to aim for a response. Large corporations such as Sky and the BBC and also Newspapers control a massive part of the choice of media distribution via their Tv shows which have a large viewer base alongside the radio which has a constant and established viewer base that is also very large. This makes it hard for the media to be Democratized as the public can not get a large share of the distribution of their product whether it be journalism, home video makers or people trying to express an opinion however they can distribute their forms of we media on social networking sites such as facebook as they have a large consumer base which therefore leads to a potentially higher viewer base alongside websites such as YouTube which gives the opportunity to anyone to upload their own video whether it can be them singing which has lead to some people becoming popular mainstream artists which is a positive reaction of we media and now it is becoming increasingly easy to make your own video or contribute to we media as technology is constantly improving.

However large corporations in the film industry such as Hollywood film productions have a massive population that watch their top movies as they have had a building reputation which is massively established and more and more people are watching movies whether it be at the cinema or at home which therefore leads to bigger budgets to make a film compared to the relatively low or no budget home videos.

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.

in conclusion the media in 2011 can be considered to be democractised on the basis that although media has revolutionised through time it still has the same or a greater effect upon society. whether it be newpapers in the early 1970's to online new website and pod casts of 2011.