Shirky's End of Audience Theory
My own research
- He believes that audiences are no longer passive. ( we wont watch things and let them wash over us not really taking thing in).
- He believes audiences are now more active, wanting to interact with the media (wanting to interact and share and to like and comment, because of technology.)
- Shirky believes this is because technology has changed out expectations and behaviour. (made us more active. We now expect to be able to share contents and like and comment, we expect a level of interaction with products.)
- Skirky believes that audiences like to 'speak back' to producers of the media. (it used to be producers at the top of this hierarchy and audiences at the bottom and we would have to wait for producers to send us their products, movies, TV programmes and magazines. Now because of twitter and Instagram we can interact with the people who make the content, we can tell them what we like and dislike, because of this there is more equality of power.
- Newspaper and magazine circulation is declining (because audiences don't like to just read a magazine because we like to interact with online digital versions because we are more active audiences now. Which is why The Daily Mail and The Guardian have apps and digital versions, websites with interactive options, twitter. If they didn't have these digital options audiences will look in other places for them.
- People are producing who are not employees or media professionals- amateur producers now have the ability to share their work globally which they couldn't do before.
- Every consumer is now a producer and everyone can talk back.
- We now publish, and the filter. We used to have limited amount of media so we could consume and we could filter easily by things like the radio times. Now we have recommendation systems like on YouTube, we also have things like Rotten Tomato which give us the critics score and audience score which allows us to talk back to the producers. The producers can now have a better idea of what the audience want.
- Shirky says we are not consumers we are now prosumers.
- Crowd sourcing- using the power of the crowds.
News
Newspapers want to informs you and make money.
Amateur newspapers are emotionally and are passionate about a topic
The Guardian had a post called "surveillance capitalism"
New media has changed the market place
Online Newspapers
TV Drama
Shirky’s Theory
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The Daily Mail
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The Guardian
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Shirky argues old media "filtered then
published"(process = journalist- sub editor-legal team-
editor-audience). While new media "publish then filter"
Journalist publish quickly without fact checking making
the news less reliable.
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Fake news Houston airport, example of them rushing
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Amateur producers have different motivations (often
emotive) to professional journalists.
Professionals publish for profit- in the case of news to
inform. Amateurs generate content that connects on a more emotive level with
the audience.
‘citizen journalism’- publish with no qualifications-
newspapers share these without fact checking.
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The mass audience with predictable behavior is gone. Some
audiences now create their own news articles, some share, and some passively
consume.
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Evaluate the usefulness Shirky's theory in understanding audiences for online newspapers such as The Guardian and The Daily Mail.
Shirky's theory can be applied to online newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The Guardian
and their accompanying social media when evaluating the impact of technology on newspapers and audiences; however it can have some limitations. Shirky's end of audience theory states that audiences have changed dramatically when using technology, 'consumers are now producers'.
Shirky's theory is useful in understanding audiences of online newspapers as he argues old media is 'filtered then published', it used to go though a process of going though the journalist, subeditor, legal team, editor and then published to the audience. However now new media is 'published then filtered'. This need to be done because the internet moves so quickly not publishing an article as fast as possible will result in someone else running the story before you, therefore loosing money. There is a downside to doing it this way, as journalists are no longer fact checking making the news less reliable which results in the audience trust journalists and the media industry less which has a negative impact on the industry. An example of this is on August 28th 2017, The Guardian and The Daily Mail ran a fake news story of Houston airport flooding with a photoshopped of the planes under water. As they looked at it fast and didn't fact check it they didn't realise that it wasn't real. This helps us to understand audiences as we can see how they can be susceptible to fake news, as the audiences are no longer passive, like Shirky states, they will see the article, believe it then press share because they want to be active.
Shirky's theory also highlights the fact that changes in technology have changed the relationship between producers and audience as all amateurs can now become a producers of a media text in competition with professional producers despite a lack of media training and knowledge of media law. In other words, modern media allows amateur producers, who are not media professionals or employees of newspapers to share their work, comments, videos, creations and opinions online to a global network which they couldn't do before; you can see this everyday on The Daily Mail and Guardian social media pages as amateurs add to stories. There are pros and cons to this change in audience, or as Shirky puts it 'death of audience as they are now - to some extent - all producers themselves. As Shirky highlights, the main con is that their reporting may be less reliable because they lack training and, unlike professional publishers of online news will publish mainly for a profit and their for make news/facts their business, amateurs mainly publish because they are passionate about something and want to emotively engage with an audience. The man who created the photoshopped image of the airplanes under water didn't sell his image to the newspapers, he created it because he is passionate about global warming. The newspapers took his image and made it out of context, making it fake news. This makes the audience very mistrusting in online newspapers.
Shirky believes that audiences have changed in many ways and his theory helps us understand them greatly. He believes that the mass audience that had very predictable behaviour is now gone. Audiences are no longer passive, they are now active. They now want to interact with the media, share, like, comment and create because of the use of technology. Shirky also believes that because of technology has changed out expectations and behaviour. Since we are now an active audience we expect to be able to have that level of interaction with products. This means that the audience expects the same from online newspapers such as The Guardian and The Daily Mail, these two newspapers both have Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages where the audience can interact with them, allowing them also to be able to 'speak back' to the producers telling them what they like and dislike, giving more equality of power.
To conclude, Shirky's end of audience theory helps to understand the modern audience and we can compare it to the past. Although the audience has become very mistrusting of online newspaper, the Guardian and The Daily Mail are still employing journalists who are trained which makes it more reliable than news made by the audience. The audience writing without a qualification is called citizen journalism. Newspapers can see the content from everyday people that won't always be the truth and share it without fact checking. Shirky's theory is helping us understand that the audience is being active and creating their own content as they want to express their own feelings and opinions, however it can be negative as it opens up a gap for a mass amount of fake news.
However amateurs generate content that they won't make a profit out of, so their content will connect on a more emotive level with the audience. This is an example of citizen journalism, where people can publish with no qualifications. Newspapers can again see the the content from everyday people that won't always be the truth and share it without fact checking. Shirky's theory is helping us understand that the audience is being active and creating their own content as they want to express their own feelings and opinions, however it can be negative as it opens up a gap for a mass amount of fake news.
To conclude, Shirky's end of audience theory helps to understand the modern audience and we can compare it to the past. Although the audience has become very mistrusting of online newspaper, the Guardian and The Daily Mail are still employing journalists who are trained which makes it more reliable than news made by the audience. The audience writing without a qualification is called citizen journalism. Newspapers can see the content from everyday people that won't always be the truth and share it without fact checking. Shirky's theory is helping us understand that the audience is being active and creating their own content as they want to express their own feelings and opinions, however it can be negative as it opens up a gap for a mass amount of fake news.
However amateurs generate content that they won't make a profit out of, so their content will connect on a more emotive level with the audience. This is an example of citizen journalism, where people can publish with no qualifications. Newspapers can again see the the content from everyday people that won't always be the truth and share it without fact checking. Shirky's theory is helping us understand that the audience is being active and creating their own content as they want to express their own feelings and opinions, however it can be negative as it opens up a gap for a mass amount of fake news.
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