- There are some impressive sections to this and it's great to see a selection of theories and examples
- Overall this lacks question focus, there are whole chunks in the middle that are hard to relate to the question. Keep focused on the key words
- Consider institutional power more. You mention it in a couple of places but don't really get into the debate whether audiences really have any freedom
- Develop your examples e.g Soundcloud and always link back to the question
Social media is unquestionably a development that has enabled and perhaps even empowered audiences as they are able to access a greater variety of views and values. The inclusion of opinion leaders makes audiences more influenced by the ideologies of those people that they admire. The two step flow model theory relates to social media as the information that audiences get are influenced by the opinion of others. This would offer a variety of views to be exposed to audiences; this is also reinforced by the act of retweeting on Twitter as followers who may not necessarily access or be interested by particular views would be exposed to new ideas. This would impact an audience in a number of ways as if something that is influential is being retweeted by an opinion leader it may effect an audience member and empower them as they are able to be influenced by these ideologies. However, this could also be seen as a negative influence on audiences as opinion leaders hold majority of the power, therefore this could be seen as a manipulative technique as opinion leaders have the control to sway an audience in a particular direction. For example with political debates such as the EU referendum J K Rowling, who has over 8.3 million followers, tweeted that people should vote remain and compared campaigners to Lord Voldemort. To tweet such an explicit tweet to reveal her views on the referendum would have influenced millions of people; this would therefore empower audiences to follow the opinions of those opinion leaders or perhaps may cause controversy due to their own views challenging Rowling's for example.
There is also less censorship due to the fact that what is now classed as unethical or derogatory differs from person to person; this could effects audiences and the views and values that they are exposed to as there could be more unethical data and unreliable sources as we cannot trust everything on the internet. Less censorship also leads to the idea of more freedom of speech as you are able to portray personal opinions without it being removed due to your portrayal of personal views and values. Countries like North Korea have denied access to any form of social media, therefore blocked access to outside information, this reveals how that country are unable to access a greater variety of views and values due to the power of the leader being corrupt, however it could also be seen as a way of not being manipulated by the media and the influence it does have on audiences as they are empowered by others and could potentially cause a rebellion or the production of a new found voice. This idea of manipulation and influence also relates to the Hypodermic Needle model as audiences can be effected by the media. The influence of citizen journalism enables audiences to be part of the media and provide a raw, authentic news coverage - camera phones have made this possible and the easy access to social media enables audiences to quickly post incidents even before they have been released by the press; this would therefore aid audiences to be aware of a wide source of information with news, from raw authentic sources before actual news channels cover the cases. Audiences would therefore be empowered by citizen journalism as they are able to access the authentic clips and facts from other people instead of the broadcasting channel. Furthermore, social media also has the ability to bring groups together to form opinions and counteract big government and political issues, the most recent being the Black Lives Matter campaigns. The case of Alton Sterling, July 5th, generated the hashtag #blacklivesmatter globally, which reveals the influence that user generated content has as audiences are able to voice their own ideologies, which other users are able to be positively or perhaps negatively be influenced by. The fact that a hashtag is able to trend globally on Twitter allows large groups of people to understand the issues that are at the forefront of the world today and would therefore expose nearly all Twitter users to important views and values; this allows audiences to be up to date with news stories and important, relevant information that is happening around the world today, empowering audiences to be able to access such information at ease; this makes e-media and in particular social media, a great platform for audiences to become empowered and to access a great variety of views and values.
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