UNIT 3 Section B Questions

A big part of your revision will be going back over your Case Studies for New/Digital Media.

Make sure you refine your research - adding to it over the final few weeks with up-to-the-minute info from sources like MediaGuardian, and new articles that will be posted up here.

Read through all your blog postings on your weekly NDM stories (using your really useful index) and look at other students' from both classes too for some of the key topics over the last year.

This is also a really helpful summary of some key ideas...

New & Digital Media Theories & Concepts

You should be able to answer all the typical questions for Section B in the exam (the most recent ones are towards the end)...

New/Digital Media

• “Digital media have, in many ways, changed how we consume media products.” Who do you think benefits most – audiences or producers?

• “Media institutions are right to feel threatened by new/digital media.” Consider this statement and show how media institutions are reacting to technological developments.

• The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

• “The new generation of UK media power players are going stratight to their audience via the web” www.mediaguardian.co.uk Monday July 14 2008. How have media institutions responded to the opportunities offered by new/digital media?

• Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

• Why and with what success are traditional media institutions adapting to the challenge posed by new/digital media?

• The world first heard about the death of Michael Jackson from the online gossip website TMZ. How has new/digital media changed the ways in which information reaches audiences and what are the implications?

• ‘New and digital media erodes the dividing line between reporters and reported, between active producers and passive audiences: people are enabled to speak for themselves.’ (www.indymedia.org.uk) Have such developments made the media more democratic, with more equal participation by more people?

• New and digital media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences. Consider how and why media institutions are using these techniques. 

• ‘To connect, to create, to share creativity or thought, to discuss, to collaborate, to form groups or to combine with others in mutual interests or passions.  If you can’t see the point of any of those things, you will not see the point of Facebook.’ (www.guardian.co.uk) What opportunities and/or disadvantages do new and digital media have for audiences?

• Although new and digital media may promise audiences more freedom, it does not necessarily give them more power. Discuss.

• New and digital media is creating one global culture. Do you think that this is true?

• The only way to survive in the digital world is to keep innovating. Do you agree?

• Most of the traditional media’s attempts to compete with new and digital media have been too little and too late. Does your case study support this view?

• The internet is a democratic space, where we are all free to participate equally. Using your own case study, discuss whether the impact of new and digital media is democratic.

• New and digital media offer a wide range of competing ideas and opinions from experts and journalists to bloggers and social networkers, making it harder for audiences to know who to trust. In such an environment, how does the audience know who to trust?

• Does your case study suggest that new and digital media have had a positive impact by offering audiences a more diverse range of values and ideologies?

• New and digital media have led many media producers to involve their audiences more. However audience involvement is only superficial and media producers have ensured they maintain control. Use your case study to evaluate whether new and digital media have changed the role of producers.

• New and digital media have contributed to the process of globalisation: the idea that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected through one global culture. Using your own case study, evaluate the impact that new and digital media have had on globalisation.

• Use your case study to evaluate whether new and digital media are a threat or an opportunity for media producers.

You should have detailed plans for each of these essays and have practised as many as possible under timed conditions (ONE HOUR for each).

Remember, the examiner is looking for the following:

• A sophisticated and detailed evaluation, showing very good critical autonomy.
• Sophisticated and detailed application of a wide range of wider contexts.
• Supports answer with a wide range of examples from other media.
• Articulate and engaged.