January assessment

1) Type up your feedback in full (you do not need to write mark/grade if you do not wish to).

40/48 = A-

WWW: Demonstrated sophisticated and detailed understanding 

EBI: The news industry/the press has been overlooked a little but you need to go over this more carefully. Write a paragraph covering this from both sides of the debate. 

2) Write which level you think YOU are currently working at for each one. Explain WHY and, for any that are not Level 4, what you are going to do to improve in that area. 

Level 4: I am working at a level 4 because this essay contained good critical autonomy and a good understanding of the new and digital media. However, to achieve a higher level 4 I will need to include a greater range of media debate or issues that are relevant to the question. 

3) Look at the Examiners' Report for this particular paper. Read page 10 - Section B New/digital media. How many of the good points or higher level answer examples did you include in your essay? What were they? What could you have added to improve your mark?

I achieved most of the good points of the higher level answer examples such as how the impact new and digital media has had on enabling audiences to participate and the concept of democracy itself. However, I could have included debates on the obstacles to equal participation and democracy such as the digital divide in the UK and globally, the power and control of media organisations. 

4) Read through these exemplar A grade essays from last year. What do these essays offer that yours does not? Identify THREE things you can take from these essays to improve your own responses in future.

• Relevant examples in current day society that can be applied
• Quotes and theorists viewpoints to support arguments
• Statistics

5) The evolvement of the news industry due to new and digital media could be argued to have had a democratic impact. For example, one aspect that the internet has provided us with is citizen journalism, which has seen the rise of UGC making its way to traditional forms of media such as the news on TV. Citizen journalism has allowed users of the internet to share their forms of news either through videos, images and other forms of evidence. The fact that it bypasses gate keeping highlights the freedom in which we all have to avoid the selection and mediation process which often result in bias. We can post any event we have witnessed and bring perpetrators to justice, which is effectively a form of democracy. Furthermore, as the audience are more involved in citizen journalism, there is a sense of power being given to the people, which is another aspect of democracy. One example of positive citizen journalism is the Rodney king case, where a victim of police brutality had been filmed thus resulting in the police officer being brought to justice through his dismissal and sentencing.. The fact that this occurred in the early years of video phones suggests that new technologies and the development of the new media are having a democratic effect, Various other cases such as the death of Ian Tomlinson and the Ferguson riots have also made it to the news in the recent years through the internet, which suggest that that the new and digital media has become a democratic force for the greater good, as our abilities to participate have enabled us as an audience to create our own forms of news. However, there are disadvantages such as the fact that it bypasses gate keeping which suggests that there may be inaccuracies, resulting in poor material. Additionally, if we were all to be citizen journalists the quality of news could decrease, as referred to by Andrew keen, who likens internet bloggers as “million monkeys typing rubbish”. This highlights one of the disadvantages of a more democratic internet. Another disadvantage that the democratisation of new and digital media has resulted in is the fact that social networks now have a greater dominance over their audiences. Tailored news, which has grown in popularity on social media, can be seen in a negative light, as audiences are subject to algorithms which result in users getting news from similar sources with the same outlook. As a result, audiences are not exposed to various perspectives of the news, which can be argued to be undemocratic, and as 10% of online news users use only social media sites for news this essentially is a form of dumbing down audiences, which is not in line with the principles of democracy which are to empower the people.

In terms of the Marxist perspective, the development of new and digital media such as the internet can be argued to be a mediocre form of a new democratic space. Despite the freedoms it provides its audiences with, it is essentially a facade as almost all forms of new and digital media are run by media tycoons who manipulate our content so they can enforce their ideologies and values to the masses. Furthermore, social media sites fuel the digital divide, as the majority of socio economic groups use some form of social media and are subject to the values and the manipulations of the industry. This can be supported by Gramsas theory on hegemony, which argues that one social class dominates over the others, in this case the elite. This can be presented through the large conglomerates based in Silicon Valley, although in minority they control and own all the social media sites such as twitter, facebook and also news conglomerates and the content that we read on the internet. This effectively supports the theory of Paertos law, which states that the minority of the population control and own the most dominant and largest conglomerates which distribute all our news such as Viacom and Sky.  As a result, it can be argued that as audiences we are not free in terms of what we read and use, as they can all be used as tools against society to manipulate us. Galtung and ruge’s theory on news values also support the Marxist view as the dissemination of news is based on the interests and values of the producers. Therefore, as audiences we are subject to the values that the news industry carries, resulting in a lack of impartiality which is undemocratic. A pluralist on the other hand would agree that new and digital media provide the audiences with a democratic space, as audiences are now capable of manipulating what they read or use on the internet, in other words able to “conform, accommodate and reject”. The elite are argued as using their strengths to create flexibility on the internet for the purposes of the audience’s gratifications, and as they believe there is no one dominant group in society, we are all in some sense do have the power to participate equally.