WWW: Good range of examples and theoretical references
EBI: Include specific reference to Marxism/hegemony and apply it to every NDM essay debate. Add an extra paragraph doing this.
- A sophisticated and comprehensive essay, showing very good critical autonomy. - Level 4
- Sophisticated and detailed understanding of new and digital media. - Level 4
- A sharp focus on the question throughout. - Level 4
- Sophisticated application of a wide range of media debates, issues and theories and wider contexts. - Level 4
- A comprehensive individual case study, with a wide range of detailed examples. - Level 3. This needs to be improved by using a lot more of New Digital Media articles relating to the news industry and the news topic.
- Well structured, articulate and engaged. - Level 4
Some of the points that I brought up in my essay were the ones the examiners were looking for such as:
- Discussed the impact new and digital media has had on enabling audiences to participate, with detailed examples to support this
- Addressed the harder concept of democracy
- Discuss the changing role of audiences and producers. Debated the arguments for and against.
- Debated the obstacles to equal participation and democracy, for example the digital divide in the UK and globally, the power and control of media organisations.
- Debated whether this was increasing or decreasing with developments in new and digital media.
However, in order to improve my mark and get the A, I could have included case studies that were a lot more specific to news or the news industry, rather than the general points as well.
Three things that I can take away from the exemplar A grade essays and use in my own essays are:
- Statistical evidence and analysis
- Link to news industry as a whole rather than general points
- Current affairs, up to date research and case studies
Over the past few decades, the rapid development and expansion rate of technology has led to a rise in new and digital media, considerably so at the turn of the 21st century. As once said "the internet is a powerful tool" and rightfully so as it has had many impacts on society especially in ways where it has affected democratic ideologies across the globe. This is especially evident as through the increase in new digital media it is argued that the world is ever interconnected and is more of a "global village" as stated by McLuhan. This essay will aim to explore the ways that new and digital media has impacted society in terms of whether or not these new technologies are promoting democratic ideologies amongst society or not.
This ideology of a democratic and empowered audience is also due to the increase in citizen journalism as the rise in social media news has mean more and more audiences are the ones creating the news that they consume. This means that the audiences now have power over what they consume and how they consume it which promotes greater democratic ideologies as the internet has essentially given power to the people. However it can be argued that this might be actually be a greater crutch for society as a fake news has become a lot more prominent in the last year especially in the past few months. With two incredibly important elections, US Preseidential and the EU Referendum, that seemingly resulted in shocking results there is little evidence to suggest that there isn't an issue with fake news. Most importantly Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman admitted that he edited/deleted comments that he didn't agree with on the largest Trump supporting community present on Reddit to make it seem like that those community members were attacking moderators. It could therefore be argued that new and didigtal media do not promote democratic ideologies as well as many people would claim and that the power still resides in the minority producers rather than the majority consumers. Furthermore this idea is also evident as Matt Hancock, the minister of state for digital and culture policy, has asked UK newspaper industry representatives to join round-table discussions about the issue. This could suggest that only people in positions of power can actually create any type of movement or work against the epidemic of fake news rather than society deciding through democracy that fake news is not for them.
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