Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Marxism and Pluralism

A pluralist on the other hand would argue that all people have equal right and that they are free to make any choice they see fit, an example of this is citizen journalism. Citizen journalism has allowed audience the ability to be able to create content of their own choice, this has to a massive increase of user generated content. This has meant that the big companies are no longer able to take advantage of people as most events that are out of the norm are not recorded. Pluralist also believe that the market it not controlled, but is open for anyone allow all people to have a chance to be successful. An example of this by people who have created videos online in which have become very popular through this and have been able to create books and even open there own business selling their own products. Blogging has allowed for freedom of speech and has allowed the audiences the ability to be able to talk about what they want and share that with people all around the world. Freedom of choice is another factor that is believed strongly by pluralists as citizens have the ability to shop wherever they want to not where they are told. 

A Marxist on the other hand would argue that freedom is an illusion that is created rather then being something that society have access to. An example of this is through social networking sites comments can be controlled, therefore meaning that comments can be deleted or even fully blocked. This is an example of how the illusion of power is support as it shows that large organisations such as Google control, blogger and YouTube. This links into Paretos law in the 80 20 split, it was proposed that 20% of the world controlled 80%. This is an example of how Google have mass amount of control, through blogger, YouTube, chrome, Google search and even phones. The android operating system is most used operating system in the world which is owned by one if the biggest IT companies. It can be argued that although there is choice on the market it is dominated by 2 operating systems, apple ad android which suggests that we are controlled by large firms. Also although there are alternative phones on the market it is fair to say that they are not as easily as accessible nor promoted there reducing choice. An example of power is the G20 where Ian Tomlinson was killed however the police officer that committed the “crime” was able to resign and therefore the charges were dropped this is an example of how although there is UGC it is not as significant as believed.

A pluralist on the other hand would argue that although it may seem to a Marxists that that we live in a bubble, why is it that more and more news organisations and social networking sites have seen a massive increase in UGC as well as big institutions adapting and changing. An example of freedom of speech and User generated content is the Ferguson story where within 3 days 6 million tweets are made on twitter about what had happened and was also trending not only but the police have admitted that they have lost control of the story. This links to Briggs and Burke their theory was that new and digital media is the most important medium of the twentieth century, user generated content has allowed for this to happen and provide justice. Another example is when the creators of family guy killed the dog of (Brian) and replaced him this had led to large amount of tweets and a fall in views which lead the institution to re-introduce the dog back in. This is an example of how the "people" got what they wanted making the big organisations lose power, this links to Al Gore who said that "the internet is an empowering tool... an exciting and revolutionary prospect.

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