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The development of new and digital media means the audiences is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the argument for and again this view.

Rupert Murdoch says "The internet has given readers much more power, the world is changing and newspapers have to adapt" this proclamation states that new and digital media developments have changed the way audiences access the internet. For someone who is so strong minded and powerful in the media, who owns a huge conglomerate, New Corporation, to say that newspapers have to adapt because of the new and digital media shows that the audiences really do have much more power in terms of production and consumption. Through New and digital media, the more traditional ways of consuming news are dying out for example The daily Mirror has fallen below 1m sales, the biggest faller in an otherwise broadly resilient daily national newspaper market in December, because audiences now turn to online version which gives them more power when consuming the information. Another strong example would be the use of portable media products like tablets and mobile phones where audiences can read news online which no hassle, holding a A3 size newspaper which can socked in rain is too much effort for people in the morning who want to relax on the trains. 

However, Pluralist argue media content isn't focused on dominate ideology but by their audience. The rise of citizen journalism and users generated content (UGC) has empowered the audiences in terms of production and consumption through the development of new and digital media. Since the audience now can create the news also with the help of the new smartphones and tablets which makes it easier for one to post their own news. A great example of UGC is the incident with Rodney King in 1992, a man who was almost beaten to death by the LA police which was seen by a man merely looking out of his window who then decided to record everything and give it to a news agency who showed it on the news everywhere, soon the video went viral and everybody saw what the LA police did just because a man was looking out of his window and happened to record it. It also created the rise in UGC as people everywhere starting using the development of new and digital media, meaning that the audiences now create their own news, they don't rely on their traditional ways of receiving news, another point to add is how majority of the teenagers today first hear the news on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter which again is another example of how because of new and digital media, audiences have a strong power in terms of consuming the products.