Thursday 4 March 2010

'Audiences are no longer just consumers of media texts but producers too.' To what extent is this true of the media products in your case study?

Audiences do consume media texts as well as producing them. For example there are both media texts that are consumed and produced by audiences for the 2009 series Pushing Daises- fantasy crime series aired on ABC and ITV1. There are many articles about the third series of Pushing Daisies being cut, such as an article from the Guardian. This is a text to consume from e-media. As a result an online petition had been produced by a fan, which was sent to ACB executives. This shows how texts that audiences consume can lead to and influence what audiences produce.

Audiences could be seen as producers because they select what media texts they choose to consume. For example, when Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, released in 2009, the trailer could be found on YouTube. YouTube is a User Generated Content website. This means people (audience) can upload and select what video clips appear in their channel. There are channels that have chosen to upload the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince trailer and behind the scenes video clips. This shows how the process of mediation can make the person a producer.

Another example of mediation process making the audience a consumer and producer is for The Twilight Saga: New Moon. There is a website that gave audiences the chance to download the soundtrack of the film, which makes them consumers of the media text. As they had the option of what songs to download, they went through a selecting process also therefore making them a producer.

There are many examples, especially on E-Media where audiences can produce their own texts. For example there is an online quiz for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. In this quiz, it tests whether you know the differences between the film and the novel, basing it on the fact audiences have consumed both texts. This again shows how media texts consumed influence media texts audiences create.

Another example of audiences producing texts is though Fan Fictions. For example there is a fan Fiction website for Pushing Daises where people create and upload their own short stories for the series. Again, this is based on the account that these audiences have viewed the series. The user can comment and select which stories are posted, making them the producer of the website.

In conclusion, it is strongly agreeable that audiences do consume and produce media texts. In most cases the produced media texts are based on or inspired by the consumed media texts. Most produced media texts are found on the E-Media platform. This is because the internet allows people to upload their own content (UGC), and becomes media texts as the internet is very easily accessed by everyone.