Thursday, 8 November 2012

What opportunities and/or disadvantages do new and digital media have for audiences.

As digital media has become and more and more important feature in our day to day lives it has also allowed us as a society to become connected in a way that we have not been able to before. this essay will focus on how our use of the digital media has affected the film industry and its audience.
One example of how the digital media has affected the film industry would be through the audience to have a voice in regards to a film possibley throughs sites such as IMDB and metacritic. These two sites have seen a surge in popularity in recent years as their reputation (Particualy IMDB due to its focus on info as well as reveiws) of having a wide range of information and reveiws from both critics and consumers. these sites allow the general audience to have a voice in what they think of the film whereas before they have not as the both have the ability to post reveiws and discussions about these films. a drawback to this is how open these two platforms are to users as the some users can choose to manipulate ratings through posting a large amount of negative reviews either as a group or through the use of multiple accounts. this can then turn users away from watching a films because of these false reveiws. Of course the ability to critique and share opinions on films may cause people to be more likely to watch a film as they may feel as though if they were disapointed with a film they can advise the rest of the users not to see it. Another example of how the audience can impact a film can be seen in the story of how a user on a website caused a film to be created. a user on the website, reddit, responded to a topic post with their concept of a film regarding modern day soldiers being sent back in time to the roman  ages. after the user posted this they were contacted by a producer and the film is now being produced. (http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/03/ff_reddit/)
Another impact the inernet has is the ability for films to be promoted through this media. this can be done on various platforms such as twitter where the one of the cast or crew that works on a film post something along the lines of an "exclusive" photo from off the set which may then cause excitement in the audience to watch that film. Another way to promote a film through digital media is via videos on sites such as vimeo and youtube or even on online articles. this can be done by posting a video onto these sites as video promotional material allows the user to become more engaged with the film than with a static image or text based article that they would find away from the internet.


1 comment:

  1. - Good explanation of the manipulation of user maintained sites such as iMDB.
    - Try to use more thories such as the uses and gratifications theory.
    - Use specific examples.

    ReplyDelete