marxism vs pluralism

"The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production." 
Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

If a pluralist were to answer this statement, then it would mean that audiences are in fact more empowered by the new/digital media, given that there are extensions in which communication technology has enabled these audiences to no longer be passive, and is more supportive of the statements that pluralism makes, such as the ways in which they consume news. Some of these methods include UGC, where there is a distinct view from what sometimes the media may be hiding, and therefore gives more meaning and significance to this 'freedom of speech' movement. An example includes the death of Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper vendor who collapsed and died in the City of London after being struck by a police officer during the 2009 G-20 summit protests. The shocking part is that Ian Tomlinson was innocent, had no influence in retaliation against police officers, and ultimately wasn't one of the protesters. The video recording that shed bright lights to his death has as a result given and challenged hegemonic views of police forces that were designed to protect and serve, but obviously this is quite the opposite as evident with the seen video footage.

On the other hand, a Marxist's approach would disagree with this, and instead would insist that the audience are not being empowered enough given that their ideologies share the hegemonic view that certain social classes, specifically the 'elite', who control dominant views set in the media. This is as of course suggested by the theorist Gramsci. Similarly, theorist Alain de Botton also quotes something parallel to this, explaining that "News corrupts us", therefore instigating the core opinion of why Marxism views do not think that new/digital media empowers the audience. Factors such as the 'gatekeepers' have an influence in this, where there is believed to be a figure that controls the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, therefore inputting more dominant ideologies and "feeding" the audience targeted information, and keeping a constant and similar status quo. 

However, pluralists disagree to this sustained status quo and instead, as quoted by theorist Gurevitch the audience are enabled to "conform, accommodate, challenge or reject", meaning that the audience are yet again not passive, and in fact "manipulate" the media in some sense if they're willing to do so. Examples include social media plateforms, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, where the "culture of freedom" is more pronounced as users can express their subjective opinions on anything by tweeting, re-tweeting, pinning a post, and simply using the app's special features. As a result, pluralists would yet again agree that new/digital media empowers them, as opinions shared on the Internet can be seen by anyone and can also in a sense be unremoved, as a theorist once stated, "Trying to take information out of the Internet is like trying to take piss out of a pool...". An example of this "stained information" on the Internet would be the Arab Spring protests, where protests took place both in states with a very high level of Internet usage (such as Bahrain with 88% of its population online in 2011).

In result, a Marxism would probably be more criticized for the ideologies in modern day, as the dynamics of information and structures have completely changed within time, almost in a sense making some of their beliefs obsolete.