Media Essay

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

Audiences are no longer just consumers of media texts but are producers too. To an extent I believe this is true and with the use of my primary texts which are the X factor, I’m A Celebrity and Britain’s got Talent I will prove my theory. I will also discuss how texts are no longer solely on one platform but are now spread along a various number of cross media platforms which consist of Print, Broadcast and also media. Furthermore, I will discuss how in this day and age audiences are responsible for creating new media texts.

The X Factor is Britain’s most watched reality TV show which is aired on ITV1 and involves audience interaction as it depends on viewers to vote on contestants and this promotes the audience theory that audiences effectively run the show as without viewers voting and sharing their opinions, then the x factor would not be as popular as it is today. This shows that audiences are becoming increasingly powerful in shaping the show. The hit TV show attracts on an average of 17.5 million viewers each series.

Furthermore, the audience is becoming increasingly powerful in shaping the show. As the X Factor website also allows the audience to interact with the show. One way it promotes interaction is by running voting polls and forums on the website which the audience can vote and have their say and see what other viewers think too. For example, on the X Factor forum, the shows producers are asking the public to “Pitch a new idea on ways to improve the show for a chance to win 2 tickets to next years final” This therefore gives the audience more power as they are being handed responsibility in producing new ideas for the show.              

The X Factor website allows the audience to interact with the show and also decide what the show produces. One way the show does this is by having a weekly poll on the website which the audience can vote and see  who other viewers like them are voting for and can also see the voting figures. For example the current question on the website is “Do you believe the X factor should be shown on weekdays?” The figures currently show Yes – 33.1% and No 67.9%.

The consumers of this text play a monumental part in how successful the show is and how successful it could become; this is because the viewers are the ones voting every week to keep in their favourite acts. This shows that the veiwers are the clear producers as they are ‘producing’ the success of the show and also produce the future success of their favourite act by voting to keep them in the audience are constructing the media text because they decide what happen in the TV program.

Furthermore, a social networking site such as Facebook and Twitter allow audiences to shape and place their views across about the show and is the most popular form of UGC amongst audiences as it is a easy way to interact with one and other and share opinions through joining groups and supporting campaigns. This gives the audience power to produce media texts and feed their opinions across. However this could also be discouraging as the audience use their power to keep contestants in even though they are not good at singing (Wagner, john and Edward) which shows how powerful the audiences are becoming as they are changing and causing havoc with the show which could be seen as an injustice. This therefore shows how much power the audiences really do have as in this modern age they produce texts and not just consume them.

However, To disagree with the statement above, The X Factor judges have the final say on who they want to keep in and knock out of the competition. We the audience see this power as Wagner was finally booted out from the X factor after all four judges chose to keep the other contestant Mary in the competition. This therefore shows that although the audiences are beginning to become producers of texts they are ultimately consumers of media texts as institutions still have the major power.

My secondary text that I have chosen to for my case study is I’m a Celebrity, Get me out of here which is also shown on ITV 1 and involves audience interaction as it is also similar to the x factor as it is a reality TV show which attracts a wide variety of viewers. I’m a Celebrity, Get me out of here has a website for viewers to interact with the show which further engages viewers. The website has a range of activities and also includes live footage and highlights from the Jungle, and also has a blog on the website which allows the audience to share their opinions and views about the show. The audience is therefore hugely powerful in shaping the show as mainstreams audiences watch the show which is successful in using gratifications which keeps the audience entertained.

Similarly to the X factor, Audiences for I’m a Celeb have to vote on which contestants they want to keep in. However, the I’m a celebrity get me out of here audiences have much more power than the X factor audiences as they are the ones who chose which contestants take part in different tasks and challenges, Which therefore shows that they are the ones who are effectively ‘producing’ the show.

My third and final text that I have chosen for my case study is Britain’s Got Talent which is very similar to both of my other texts as they are all reality TV shows and are all aired on ITV1 and involves audience interaction as they all attract mainstream audiences.

Britain’s got talent attracts an audience of 6 million.  The show is very similar to the x factor and is in fact identical in the way they approach their audiences as the structure of both shows is the same. Furthermore, the BGT website includes competitions and news about the judges and also a feedback forum which allows the audience to shape the output of the media and become producers of the show too as by giving there opinions to the forum, they are

Furthermore, BGT operates on many social networking sites such as Face book and Twitter where it allows a lot of audience interaction. The show is mostly targeted at men and women aged from 16- 25 which is where most of them use such sites as a means of connecting with people and voice their opinions about the show. As there is a lot of popularity on the BGT pages, this allows the content to be user generated as the appearance of the pages as a whole is created by the consumers. This therefore shows the BGT relies on the interest of their consumers to create gossip and comment on which contestants they like and dislike which therefore makes the consumers the main producers.

In conclusion, I believe that reality TV shows such as, The X factor, Britain’s got talent and I’m a celebrity cannot become successful without the input and interest from audiences through their websites and social networking which therefore makes them the producers of the media. However, the final decisions comes from the institutions themselves where then the consumers ‘consume’ the material, post opinions and videos as a means of feedback for the artist. Therefore I believe that  Both consumers and producers are the main audience all tied into one as one and another need each other as without an audience there wouldn’t be a show, but on the other side of the argument, without a show there wouldn’t be any entertainment for the audiences.