Audiences and Institutions

1) Read this extract from the Ofcom 2014 report on the consumption of news in the UK. What are the key statistics relating to the influence of new and digital media?

• The majority of adults in the UK (95%) say they follow the news.
• Television is by far the most-used platform for news, with 75% of UK adults saying they use TV as a source of news; this figure has seen a small decrease since 2013 (78%).
• evident in the 16-34 age group, where use of internet or apps for news has increased 
• figures show that each adult watched an average of 115 hours of national and international news on television
• The majority of this (64%) was on BBC One or BBC Two and a further 12% on the BBC News channel. However, 16-24 year olds consumed only 27 hours of news on television in the same period, compared to 196 hours for those aged 55 and over.
• UK adults nominated crime (53%), worldwide current affairs (53%), UK-wide current affairs (51%) and UK-wide politics (49%).
• the 16-24s, specific news categories such as crime, sports, technology and science/environment fall into the top ten topics, while the over-55s are more likely to nominate, general world news and UK and regional current affairs.

2) Come up with an example of an institution that has benefited from the changes new and digital media has brought to the news industry. Explain how new technology has helped the institution and try to find statistics or financial figures that support your point.

An example of an institution that has benefited from the advances in new and digital media is the Sky. This is as they are an institution that has adapted very well to the changes, developing a website as well as an app. Through these developments, it has allowed the institution to remain relevant in and amongst the changes in digital media. This therefore results in Sky generating more revenue as they will remain competitive within the developments in digital media. Furthering this, as 60% of users accessing news via app and website are 16-24's it shows how the demographic of this institution's audience has widened because of the developments thus meaning that through the changes in digital media, the institution has crafted a wider audience.   

3) Find an example of an institution that has suffered as a result of the changes new and digital media has brought to the news industry. In what way has it had a negative impact? Again, try and find actual statistics or financial figures to explain your point.

An example of an institution that has suffered because of the changes in new and digital media is the daily telegraph. This institution is suffering because of the lack of sales they are making with their newspapers. This is because audiences are given a range of platforms to access the news such as, the internet, television and mobile apps. These alternative ways audiences can access news are more convenient for audiences therefore leading to the daily telegraph, who generate majority of their revenue through sales of newspapers, to suffer. 

4) Answer the following question in a mini-essay on your blog:

Who has benefited most from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry - audiences or institutions?

Both audiences and institutions have benefited from new and digital media audiences have benefited in terms of they now have much more ways to access news, also ways to access news for free instead of 15-20 years ago when they would have had to buy a newspaper to get their news. Audiences can also now become journalists  and report on news our selves with blogs and online comments on newspapers websites. institutions have also benefited from new and digital media as they now have much more ways to reach their audience with online, social media etc, they also can now reach a much wider audience than before as young people are more interested in the news as they see it on their Twitter feed whereas they wouldn't have seen it before because they weren't looking for it. 

However both audiences and institutions have also had negative affects on them from new and digital media. An example is that we as an audience have been desensitised to more graphic things we wouldn't have seen on the news 20 years ago. An example of this would be Aylan, the boy who drowned during the refugees travelling from Syria. The images showed the boy on the beach face down and due to new and digital media.