question 4

4. Is the size of the audience any different now than before the impact of new and digital media (or has the pattern of usage changed)? E.G. consider for the impact of new and digital media on TV broadcasting the change in audience ratings for programmes as a consequence of the deregulation of TV. (Prior to deregulation audience figures could be 20m+ for Eastenders etc to a situation today where, due to the massive number of channels now available, audiences are vastly reduced and fragmented).
   In terms of the usage of Social Networking such as facebook and Twitter has changedd over the last 5 years . Before it was only used by people on general whereas now institutions such as the BBC and ITV have their own Facebook pages , where consumers can post up videos or their thoughts about a particular subject that has dominated the news . Audience patterns of usage have changed with the introduction of gadgets such as the ipad , iphone and blackberry devices . These gadgets are preloaded with access to the web as well as the ability to download apps from the app store or blackberry world . The web 2.0 theory can be applied here as we are now active consumers of the media , whereas before web 1.0 was more applicable as we were passive consumers . Our output of media texts range from youtube to facebook and twitter as well as social networking , audiences have a choice between what they see as news worthy and what is questionable . Audience capacity increases with time , in part due to the rise of UGC and other reason being that we are more mobile in the digital era .