How significant has the Internet been to media audiences?
The Internet has had a significant affect on media audiences as it has created many different opportunities for people to view different media products.
The Internet plays a big part in movie sales, as the Internet has many pirated films on it the piracy reduces the revenues and therefore the investments into future projects are lowered which in turn has a major affect on the films being produced and distributed. As the investment of future projects is lowered the films being produced will have reduced quality, will be less risky so we will see more films which are all similar lowering the variety shown at different multiplexes. Although 3D has been around for many years we're are only just seeing a rise in 3D films being produced again, this is a way to combat piracy, it means they will be harder to film with a regular camera and won't be of good watchable quality when posted onto the Internet on different films downloading sites.
Before the rise of the online media consumers would purchase VHS or DVD's from high street retail shops such as HMV and high street supermarkets such as Tescos and Asdas. Recently HMV has gone into administration as the sales of DVDs and CDs has decreased. This is due to a rise in media products being distributed on the Internet. The way films are marketed is through advertisement such as posters, trailers and magazines within magazines there are usually different critic reviews. The use of the Internet and user reviews (Web 2.0) has changed the way films are reviewed sites such as IMDb and rotten tomato allow anybody to review and rate a film which introduces the theory that consumers are now fast becoming producers.
The way films are viewed now has also changed due to the rise in online media. Legal streaming sites such as Netflix, LoveFilm and NowTV are a cheap, fast and convinent way to access and watch films. Sky Box Office which is pay per view is also another way to view films quickly without leaving the comfort of your own home which is in turn bringing down the sale of hard copies of DVDs. You also have a larger varity of films online. Other sites which are illegal ways of streaming and downloading films are letmewatchthis, movie2k, sidereel and many others, the benifits of downloading like this is that again you are in the comfort of your own home and users have ablity to upload diiferent medias and rate the quality, the disadvantages of downloading igllegaly is that the qualatity isn't what it would be like if it was viewed in a cinema or brought on DVD or Blu-Ray.
