“Audiences are no longer just consumers to text, but producers too"

To what extent is this true of the media products in your case study?

The genre of my case study is ‘cooking’ which comes under lifestyle. The primary texts I have chosen are ‘master chef’ ’, ‘nigella bites’ and ‘Jamie’s 30 minutes meal. They all have similarities and differences, one of the similarities is that they all got three media platforms; E-media, Print, Broadcast. However they all broadcast at different times and different channel to make it suitable for their target audience.  This essay will argue whether the statement “Audience are no longer consumers to text, but producers too” is true or not by analysing my three platforms.

How do the audience take control over E-media?

Firstly producers are the makers of a media source in my case a programme ,they do the distributing and putting everything together to make it into a one whole source whereas consumers; they are ones who the programme is aimed at. Moreover, ‘Nigella bites’ are available in many websites like ‘YouTube’ which could be downloaded by anyone. This gives the consumers power to do anything with the downloaded video, which then could be redistributed to any other websites created by the consumers. Furthermore, they can contribute or interact by commenting on the videos in YouTube, this may give feedback to the producers which could improve things.

Sometimes, consumers can get their views across by interacting to one of the media platform; consumers are mostly likely to interact through E-media by posting their comments. For example for all three of my case studies they have their own Facebook page, where anyone can like it and read the updates or comment or discuss issues about the programme. Furthermore, there are lots of ways to interact to the media however I don’t think any of the interaction are noticed by the producers. As mentioned before, my case studies are about cooking; cooking cannot be manipulated according to the audience interest or needs. All three platform has its own target audience and the audience are targeted with different presenters/host/chefs and different style of foods.

However, the producers can get audience involved and manipulate the show around a little bit by maybe adding few features for example competition could be used to get the audience involved for example; ‘Jamie’s 30 minutes meals’ show could ask their audience to send out their very own recipe made by themselves in 30 minutes, this then can be posted on to the E-media and get the people to comment and what they think about this. Furthermore they could also do a webcam live show of the audience cooking from other end and at the end of the show the person who participated could give their opinions about the show and how much it changed their life. This could obviously be used as codes of convention to get more viewers watching the show.

In contrast, MasterChef have contestants who are their primary target audience. They can take part in the show by applying for a place in for the competition. So whatever they produce can be used as a recipe for the audience to use. This demonstrates that particular in this show, it may somehow prove that consumers are becoming producers, as the audience for this show could become a contestant and manipulate the show. However the audience for this show are younger target audience; almost 45% contestants are under 30 years old, this just shows that maybe the younger consumers are becoming producers as they are more contemporary and up to date with the media. Therefore, they are more likely to be dominant when it comes to interacting and manipulating things. This also tells us that older people don’t have the power or are not interested on changing the programme type as most of the interaction happens in the E-media platform where mostly younger generation are the consumers.

In conclusion, by looking at my case studies, I disagree with the statement ‘Audience are no longer consumers but producers to’ as they play very little part in the shows, and even if they interact through various of other media sources, their opinions isn’t considered to change the features of the show, as mentioned before it is a cooking show, it’s something that a audience could learn from it however they cannot manipulate it. However, I have also mentioned how they actually can get their viewers opinions across for example by competition. Lastly, it shows that the institution don’t let their consumer empower their programmes.