Power in the media essay

 Essay 

"To what extent do people today have the power to represent themselves" 

People today have an unprecedented amount of power to represent themselves through the media and free speech platforms. Big tech companies such as Google and social media giant, Facebook, have a hegemonic dominance over content in order to decide what is shown at what is not. Influence is huge and can be easily passed on through powerful names, enforcing different ideologies onto audiences, sometimes tainting the image of some groups in society and the way they are being portrayed. An example of this is the Black Lives Matter movement, where audiences were sick of seeing people of color shown in an aggressive or dangerous light on-screen or through the media. In 2011, more than half of the films fell into the lowest level of cast diversity of less than just 11%. However, in 2020, 28.8% of films had the highest level of cast diversity with 50% or higher. Just under 10% of films in 2020 fell into the lowest level of cast diversity, clearly showing the changes being made to adapt to audience preferences. Stuart Haul's Representation theory implies that the subject has a single fixed meaning against which accuracy can be measured. Haul points out that this can not be so. This can be seen to correlate yet also contrast with George Gerbner's Cultivation Theory. He believed that long-term exposure can shape the way you perceive the media and influence how audiences conduct themselves. 

Pew research center did a survey and found that 72% of U.S. adults say that social media platforms are having too much of an influence on today's society. Similarly, 59% of people think that certain types of media should be banned or censored to stop different messages from being misunderstood, for example, the covid pandemic showed how different information was twisted into something to either scare people further or give wrong news. Platforms such as Twitter began really as a tool that allowed those in social circles to essentially "shout out" to one another, but it has increasingly become a broadcast platform to reach the masses. Some 47% of the population thinks that the government should be regulation major technology companies more than it is now. Regulation can be seen as a good thing but censorship may be argued against. Rather than silencing someone's right to free speech, it could be edited or just the post that was seen as offensive could be taken down. An example of this is when Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump's account. As of this, within the weekend, nearly every link to his account was taken down and him being banned from social media giant Facebook. The people who hold the power here are the ones creating the content as well as the ones regulating it. Social media is still a massive evolving phenomenon and the problem is now whether it is having a more positive or negative effect and influence on the masses 

Although the control of the media is slowly becoming more accessible to the wider population, companies such as the big 5 (Disney, Sony, Warner Bros, Paramount, and Comcast) still have control over smaller subsidiaries and the media that goes out to audiences. Through the proliferation of technological convergence, big monopolies such as Disney now have more control than ever through the introduction of streaming video on demand (SVOD). Not only does it make it easier for audiences to access the media but also cheaper than having to go to the cinemas which are on the rapid decline. Fans can now 'binge' their favorite show or movie series without ads or interruptions. This as well as the introduction of web 2.0 gives audiences the freedom to express their opinions about certain aspects of the media they are consuming, audiences now becoming 'prosumers' catering to their liking. An example of this was with the release of Stranger Things, and a fan page was created on Facebook so that people could talk freely and express their thoughts on the show. Instead, it was a platform for hate speech that ended up having to be taken down because complaints were made by the actors saying that what people were putting online was hurtful and started to affect the ways in which actors played their roles. 

A clear example of the audience controlling different parts of the media is in the film 'Song of the South, released in 1946, directed by Wilfred Jackson, whom may I point out was a middle-aged Caucasian male at the time of the production of this movie. In this, there is a picture of cackling crows shown in a rather discriminatory racist light. They are seen to be talking like a person of colour and seen to have adopted 'baffoon'-like behavior, as that was the only thing people of a different race were seen to behave like. It was a mockery of culture and as time went on people started to voice their opinions about this, forcing Disney to completely remove this offensive scene from the original movie. It is not just people of colour and minorities being shown in a stereotypical way through the media. It is also how women are now being used in music videos as objects, a typical "trophy wife" where male singers almost are objectifying women, thinking they are nothing more than something to stand there and look pretty or making the males look in power, a dominant gender. Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory puts this into perspective, saying how women no longer want to be accessories on screen. Everything was being made where the female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, meaning their opinion is not as important as the male audience. Big-name artists such as Chris Brown or Kanye West have used women in ways of promotion where they are almost promoting sexualized content aimed at men. Over time women have started to take rank where they have started owing their femininity and using it to sell the content of their own. Lil Kim revolutionized women in music and started a new era in the late 1990s, dominating the billboards and paving a way for future female artists/rappers. 

Independent filmmakers are starting to rise through the ranks as we now have access to so many streaming platforms that allow user-generated content. One of the biggest online phenomenons to be introduced to the public was Youtube released in 2005 and now has over 2.1 billion users. This has given indie filmmakers the opportunity to get their films recognized on a low budget. People have not only started to become involved in the way films are being made but are starting to make their own films. The industry is a forever growing market and gives people the power to represent not only themselves but already established conglomerates, in whatever light they chose. Through web, 2.0 people can influence the opinion of the world on something through the click of a button.