David Gauntlett

1. According to Gauntlett, what was "the media" like in the past and what changes have now occurred?

According to the words of David Gauntlett, media in the past had major divisions between the distributors and the consumers. Before, terms such as "God" was used to describe the roles of the distributors, this is because in the past you needed big recorded devices and cameras which was impractical as most people did not really afford to own such things. Gauntlett states that media was "handed down from on high", in terms of accessibility and general attitudes and tones towards it. The consumers were seen as "little people" due to the lack of control. He compares the general architecture of the Broadcasting House with the exterior of a church, justifying the power of the distributors. However, now there are portable, small devices such as laptops and phones which can be any easy source where the previous "little people" can upload there work on sites such Youtube and Wikipedia, these sites display a variety of videos such as homemade videos and they manage to gain a wide audience which enforce the individual to carry on making things for their fellow people. 

 He states that one of the main reasons for the change was due to the founding of Web 2.0. Before this discovery,  Web 1.0 meant that everybody created their own websites separately from one another. However the discovery of Web 2.0 enforced the idea that everybody contributed towards the internet together.

Originally the founder of the worldwide web designed the web so that everybody could contribute their ideas together, unfortunately it didn't work like that for many years as it was not clear how it would work in that way. However, nowadays people are able to contribute to one another sites due to web 2.0.







2. How far do you agree with Gauntlett?
Gauntletts ideas on the evolution of the media could be said to be valid due to the changes overtime involving the internet. In the past people simply just used the internet as a resource. Nowadays they use it for uploading first hand reports from portable devices such as their mobile phones and cameras. However although it could be said that the internet is becoming more of a democratic source, only 8% percent of consumers which use sites such as youtube and twitter actually upload things for others to consume. This suggests that yes the internet is more democratic to an extent that people have more access to creating reports which can be uploaded however, not many people actually upload things onto the worldwide web.

3. How might Gauntlett's ideas be applied to the music industry?
Gauntletts theory can be applied to the music industry as in the past, the music industry was strictly consisting of releasing music through major record labels such as Sony Entertainment, this could be represented as the "Music Gods". It was extremely hard to be discovered unless you sent your material to the record label. However, the chances of them viewing these materials were very unlikely. Nowadays, due to the inventions of Web 2.0 the number of upcoming artists have increased significantly as they are able to upload their footage and materials online where fans can view their work. The artists are then discovered by a record company or they can just continue on as an independent artist which of whom uploads their materials for those interested.