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Audience/Producer

By: Duncan West

10/2/2018

Social media has given the audience ,us as user, to actually produce, rather than just take in the material. This in a way evens the Social Media hierarchy to a some what even playing field. Giving everyone a voice to be heard. Without Social Media the only way to really get your voice out would be to be interviewed, but the only people being interviewed were celebrities. Now that we do have social media everyones opinions are there to be read at the click of a button. This gives the average person a voice for getting their ideas out there. This power should not be looked upon lightly. Movements can be started in the matter of hours with social media. These movements can be very powerful and quick spreading especially with the help of a celebrity. Celebrities have huge impacts on the social media world these impacts can be both positive and negative. That is why Social Media is nothing to be taken lightly but rather a tool that can be used for good. 
Social Media allows us to receive information and advertisements, but also gives us the ability to produce our own cultural objects. This makes us not only passive but active when using media. “the notion that audiences do more than simply receive/consume mass media is a key shift in the development of contemporary cultural and media studies. Rejecting a monolithic notion of the audience as a passive mass that simply consumes and accepts the bourgeois ideologies transmitted by mass media, these and other scholars acknowledge audiences are ‘being active in all kinds of ways’ when they engage with mass media.”(Meyers, E,1023). This gets rid of the standard of the masses taking in the cultural object of the producers who are manly of the upperclass. This changes the structure of media to allow more open perspectives. This even media playing field makes it easy for people to gain support. This can be used as tool for media activism building support and connecting with others with similar views, or that have gone through similar things. 
Social Media is not something to be taken lightly at all their are numerous accounts of people making ignorant comments and getting trolled, post with the intent of hurting someone, for these comments.  This is a big problem for celebrities who get seemingly endless attention from social media user. Celebrities cultural objects are seen by so many more people, making them have such a big impact. This is the reason behind the massive social media celebrity tabloid craze. Being a celebrity in the modern media world you must be very careful about what you say. “The ‘independent celebrity producers’ include workers like publicists, agents, managers and other specialists who build up the celebrity’s attention-getting power as a means to sell that image to other commercial industries.” (Meyers, E, 1027) I chose this quote to really emphasize the importance that many of the celebrities have taken toward their social media. Social media is must be used carefully to avoid offending people on subjects that you are ignorant about.
With this even media playing field it is now the importance of us as users to be conciseness of what we are posting. We should be using social media as a tool to benefit the social and cultural world. The support of millions of people with one click of a button is a powerful tool that can connect the world.


Meyers, E. A. (2012). ‘Blogs give regular people the chance to talk back’: Rethinking ‘professional’ media hierarchies in new media. New Media & Society, 14(6), 1022–1038.
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Comments

  1. KHNovember 3, 2018 at 11:56 AM

    Duncan,

    Like your previous post, this essay suffers from some issues of style and formatting. Check the Purdue OWL for proper use of APA in-text citation and references.

    More substantively, I appreciate your attention to the intersection between celebrity and activism in the era of social media. However, the essay lacks coherence and direction. At first, you seem to address "everyday" users, then you shift our attention to celebrity, but in the abstract.

    As noted throughout the semester, you and your readers are best served when you "peg" your discussion to a concrete episode or object. In the absence of of such a peg, this reads as a rather generic and, again, unfocused discussion.

    Based on these recent posts, my strong suggestion is to take some time to work on the clarity of your written expression. You may find a few visits to the Writing Center beneficial across your studies.

    24 pts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 4, 2018 at 11:46 AM

    Duncan,
    To start, I think your post has a lot of great information and really hits home on how their are positives and negatives to social media depending on how you use it. You do a great job of referring to celebrities in social media and how they use their platforms to spread a greater message. Like professor said, I think you could have maybe focused in a little more on one specific discussion rather than having it be such a broad topic. Aside from the information and the discussion itself, I think some of your grammar needs a little correcting along with sentence formatting. It was kind of hard to follow along because of the structure of the sentences, and I would double check Purdue Owl to make sure all of your citations were correct. Other then these minor mechanical and gramatical issues within the post, I think you have a lot of good content to share and an overall great blog. Nice job and keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete

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