News question 4 practice

case study question and you have to mention The Guardian and the Daily Mail, it is an evaluate question and have to evaluate how useful a theorist is when applying to news

Evaluate the usefulness of one of the following when understanding audiences for online newspapers such as The Guardian and the Mail Online

either

Gerbner's cultivation theory

or

Shirky's End Of Audience

Shirky

End Of Audience theory states that audiences require interactivity, consumers as producers who now make content. As active consumers we are now prosumers and expect interactivity. this has risen due to the rise of the internet. Audiences expect to interact with media producers and shape the production of the content, Wikipedia is a source made by lots of prosumers and audiences that have then become producers. New media publishes then filters

Initial ideas

The Daily Mail publishes stories that get comments by viewers who are interacting with the text and becoming producers with a Boris Johnson story getting over a 1000 comments within the first hour. Share bars to other social media platforms so the discussion can continue there. Consumers don't create all the content, professionals do with actual journalists making articles. Online news isn't filtered as IPSO doesn't do anything to regulate it. Repeatable narratives because of Hesmondhuach. While the Mail online are technically professionals they are also prosumers as they are stealing ideas from social media. On the day Tina Turner died, the Mail Online used content generator produced by consumers to publish an article.

Limitations

None of these theories are designed to be applied to news, Shirky wasn't thinking of news when he made the theory. Shirky is an audience theorist therefore it can't be perfectly applied to the product itself.

Online macro

Guardian has live news with constant updates, The Guardian has editors choices in the comment section, the Mail Online had 1000 comments within an hour of a 36 million Mail Online, 39 million for The Guardian, The Guardian 100,000 circulation, vs Daily Mail 908,000

Actual answer

Clay Shirky's end of audience theory references the media's move to online. He states that consumers are becoming producers or prosumers. This can be seen through the UK news industry and its shift to online after declining print sales.

Both The Guardian and Daily Mail have made a huge shift to online. The Guardian stopped printing as it has a last known circulation of 100,000 while it has 39 million weekly views on its website. However the Daily Mail managed a circulation of 908,000 but has only achieved 36 million weekly views. Despite this, the Daily Mail's shift to online has been huge with 2000 articles a day with 4000 images a day. While these articles are made by professionals they all have comment sections where consumers can become prosumers and leave their input; Despite the use of an automatic regulator to stop any bad language being used there isn't an actual person behind the scenes regulating the comments therefore making it inefficient. The comments are incredibly powerful with a story of Boris Johnson's final days getting 1000 comments within an hour; This highlights the power of interactivity and supports Shirky's theory as people are desperate to interact with live news. However The Guardian has a more effective filter system with the author themselves going through and even picking out their own personal choice out of the comments.

While this theory can be applied it isn't perfect, when Shirky made this theory he had social media and websites like Wikipedia in mind. This means that the link to news is not entirely perfect. While there are comments full of consumers, the articles themselves are being written by professional journalists. Although both the Mail Online and The Guardian have links to share articl3s to social media sites for the discussion to continue which would align better with Shirky's theory.


new lesson

evaluation- none of the theories was made for news

Gerbner-cultivation theory

Media repeats representations of of people or groups and these repeated narratives build up over time and make audience believe these stereotypes. Repetition cultivates over time to become a mainstream ideology or outlook on the world. Digital bubbles and echo chambers will make people believe in a forced reality. Longer-term effects on individuals who consume online newspapers, especially heavy online users. Common use of violence and the value of bad news creates an outlook of a dangerous world characterised by negative events also known as 'mean world syndrome'. Gerbner suggested that news should be more regulated to avoid this. It was made before a digital age so these messages can be challenged by replies and responses.

Online Guardian V Mail

  • 36.5 million per month for Guardian and 36 million per month for Daily Mail
  • Daily Mail has an ABC1 audience with gossip and largest female readership
  • Daily Mail 'stack em high, sell em cheap' by producing lots of low quality stories and plenty of ads
  • Daily mail repeats narratives that cultivate negative opinions on youths, immigrants and Harry+Megan

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