ESSAY SECTION B - QUESTION

Consider how and why media institutions are using these techniques

News and digital media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences?

In my opinion there are several ways for media institutions to reach audiences. These different methods of reaching audiences are as follows:

Firstly the most common way New/Digital media opening an avenue to reach audiences is through social media. This is because with the development of the internet (Web 2.0 by Tim O'Reilly), social media has grown. One example of a social media that has given media institutions a way of reaching audiences is Twitter. This social media connects people from all over the world which supports the idea of the global village by Marshall McLuhen. Global village is the world considered a single community connected by telecommunications. This allows media institutions to communicate audiences by tweeting in which is a convenient way of communication with audiences. Also many media institutions such as BBC News as tweeting news as it occurs which is called 'News on the Tweet'.

Another method of media institutions communicating is through the use of live streaming applications. This is very popular with media institutions in today's world because people want to hear about new when it occurs. This also supports the news value of immediacy which is why this method has become increasing popular over the years. One example of the live streaming app is Periscope which increased its daily usage. Periscope hit 10 million daily users in September 2015 which is a huge amount for an app and could be because of the immediacy news value. An example of an Periscope event that had become popular is a journalists live-streamed Syrian refug ees entering Germany.

One more way in which media institutions are reaching audiences is by adding a paywal/subscription to their services. One example of a media institution who currently has a paywall subscription is the The Times which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. The Times have been quite successful in keeping the paywall subscription going and have made profits from this technique. However The Sun has not been successfully with the paywall subscription as they have had the paywall subscription currently in which it did not pay off. The Sun also owned by Rupert Murdoch in which has not done well because the demographics for those newspapers are different. The Sun is based on entertainment and has a younger demographics whereas The Times has an older demographic who are working class because The Times involves articles about the working world which means that the working class have more money and are willing enough to buy a paywall subscription to gain access to the newspaper articles whereas Then Sun have a younger audience who are probably not working and do not have money to be spending on paywall subscriptions.

Murdoch has said that news is changing and news will have to adapt. In my opinion this is a pluralist view as people have changed the way they view the news and stories of news. If people have found a more convenient way then the news institutions would have to supply the demand of the public and change the ways they look at the news. Also a pluralist would argue that because the people have an interest in news instantly which is why media institutions are using Periscope so they can deliver what the people are needing.

However a Marxist would argue that the elites who are the big media institutions have influenced people to view news on the internet as they are able to use cookies to find out more on the viewer of the article. The elites would then have more control on the reader such as finding out information to target news in a much better way and increase the viewership of their news articles by offering related news articles. Also Marxists would argue that this means that media institutions are deciding which news articles that the public would want the public to know about and the public do not have a say in which type of news articles are posted to their websites.

Netflix which is my case study has a way of reaching audiences by having a social media account. A Twitter account is used by Netflix in which they tweet there new uploads to their Twitter and also their original series. These tweets then get many re tweets and favourites because of the Web 2.0 in which more people become aware of Netflix and what they have to offer. Also to use Netflix, you will need to create an account and pay a subscription which means that consumers who are willing to pay for the service will if they have seen series on Twitter.