Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of my favorite astrophysicists.
Yes, I realize how nerdy that sounds but I will also say he is really the only
one that I actually know of. However, in this video, Dr. Tyson says that we
need to look at NASA “not as a handout but as an investment because as goes the
health of space faring ambitions, so too goes the spiritual, the emotional, the
intellectual, the creative, and the economic ambitions of a nation. So goes the
future of America.” I bring this up in a blog about communication because, to a
certain extent, I believe we have stopped dreaming. Yes, there have been
advancements in communications but most of these advancements have to do with
making communication easier. It has to do with making the technologies that we
use faster or smaller or more powerful. What is considered advancements in
communication technology is really just new ways to write code so that a useful
function comes from it. This is actually sort of a sad testimony to where we
are in terms of communication because science can actually help us talk about
things and discuss and advance our position, in short, it can help us become
better communicators.
Dr. Tyson also has a show called Star Talk and in it he
takes current subjects and puts them through the lens of science. One of my
favorite Star Talks was one where he talked with Wil Wheaton who played Wesley
Crusher in Star Trek, The Next Generation.
In it they discussed the things that human beings have done simply through the
application of knowledge. Also, they talk about how many scientists have looked
on the science fiction genre and drawn their inspiration of invention from the
shows.
This is all incredibly important as it pertains to
communication because if science and technological advances fuel
communications, then it is important that technological advances and the
creation of new technologies be on the forefront of communicators. I am not
saying that creativity is not still alive but it is being hampered when we are
no longer creating new technologies but we are just trying to improve the ones
that we have. It speaks to the mindset of communication today. We live in the most
technologically and scientifically advanced society ever and yet we no longer
think like scientist. So, for the future
of communication technology it is important that we get back to the wonder that
it takes to think like a scientists.
There is some questionable language in the show so do not watch it it you are offended by such language. I would like to end by saying that I do not think that things such as social media or communication technologies are bad. I just think that, for the sake of the future of communication in general there should be a shift in the focus of both our technologies and our communication.
I remember, when I was in second grade, we had different
learning stations that we would put our color cards in (we were separated by
color groups and that was determined by reading ability) the slots next to the
station we wanted and later in the day we would spend thirty minutes and the
station that we were able to get. I also remember that there was one station
that was more popular than any other station and that was the computer station.
Keep in mind, this was in 1990 and so the computer’s abilities were very
limited but I do remember one particular game that helped us with our math.
There would be an addition or subtraction problem above two frogs and you had
to work it out before the computer did. If you did this you got to swallow the
fly and the point was to have more flies than the computer at the end of the
game.
That was a long time ago and technology has advanced to the
point where anyone who has ever watched the movie Terminator has to, at times, wonder when Skynet will become
self-aware and computers will take over the world. However, technology has also advanced to the
point where it is so easy to use that it is a wonder why some schools are still
not incorporating technology in the educational process.
Some people may say that it has to do with a comfort level
that teachers have with technology and yet, according to an article put out by
the National Children’s Bureau in Great Britain, many adults feel a sense of
safety with at least one form of technology, the cell phone. But, in the United States, we spend so much
time and energy in a losing fight of trying to keep students off of their
phones during school hours. I am a Youth Director and there are several times
throughout the day that I look on Facebook and see something that my youth has
posted on Facebook via their phone. Phones are a part of society now. So much
so that parents and kids use them to communicate. It may not be their main form
of communication but there are times that they are used to broach difficult
subjects. This shows a certain amount of comfort that kids have with computers.
Admittedly, we have other forms of technology that can be
used other than cell phones. Also, I admit that children are able to pick up just
about any technology at an incredible rate. But, if Allison Gopnik is correct
in her TED talk about the way that young children think and, culturally,
parents and children are comfortable with cell phone use, then it seems that it
would behoove us to adopt them somehow in our education. I bring up the way
children think because I think it would be smart to focus the energy on one
form of technology.
Education is about spreading the wonder of the natural world
around us. It is hard to do that anymore with children whose attention span is
thirty minutes at the most. Traditional forms of teaching need to be rethought
because it makes no sense to try to get a child to sit still and pay attention
when they are just not going to do that. It is not the teacher’s fault it is
just that the minds of children now need a multi-sensory learning experience
and because technology has become so portable this is a valid option. I like
the idea of using smart phones due to the comfort level that so many people have
with their phones.
However, I do admit that not everyone has a cell phone and
not everyone would be able to afford a smart phone or the data that it would
cost to implement the use of cell phones in the learning experience. There is a
digital divide in this country but more and more people are actually obtaining
the equipment needed to bridge the gap. This has led to a redefining of what
digital gap means. Bridging the digital
gap now indicates the fact that, while many people do have technology, those
who produce content that is consumed is done so along the same socioeconomic
scale that used to separate those who had technology and those who did not.
This is an interesting issue because, with the increase of technology, it is
very easy to create content and produce it on the internet. So, the question
becomes, what can be done to encourage and enable our children to use
technology to supplement their education?
The answer, I believe, is a mixture of teaching style and
the right technology to encourage the imagination of a child. In his TED talk,
chemistry teacher, Ramsey Musallam talks about how one of his student’s
curiosity took her to a new level. He made the point that teaching had to allow
for mistakes. He also makes the point that if we put technology before a
student’s inquiry then, as teachers, that can actually rob teachers of a great
tool for learning which are students’ questions. That means that whatever technology that
teachers use in the class room has to not only encourage curiosity but also
allow for questions.
In the TED talk mentioned above, Allison Gopnik pointed out
how, when we are young, we naturally use the scientific method to figure things
out. This is important because what the scientific method does is allow us to
make wrong assumptions in order to finally get to the correct answer. So, if
that is the case, then it would make sense that whatever technology is used to
help supplement learning should also allow for the use of incorrect assumptions
by the students. It would seem that we naturally learn by first ruling out what
is wrong. In schools today we are more concerned with the idea that the
students just know the right answer rather than also know what the wrong
answers are. Technology is similar if we look at the internet and the use of
Google in school. People “Google” to get the right answer rather than having to
suffer the inconvenience of going through the wrong answers. This is not
conducive to learning.
I suggested using phones in the classroom because of
students’ comfort with them. The idea that it is important for students to feel
the ability to be wrong is okay is what drove my thought that cell phones would
be the ideal technology to be used in a learning environment. If students feel
comfortable with a particular piece of technology then perhaps they will feel
better about making a mistake with that same technology. At least then they are
with something they feel safe using.
References
The Role of Mobile Phones in Family Communication- Kerry Devitt and Debbi Roker, Children & Society, Volume 23, 2009. pp 189-202
There is a theory in communication studies that states that
people, when they first meet another person, desire to lower their uncertainty
about the other person. This is, in a sense, what companies are trying to do
when they advertise. This lowering of uncertainty is what we call, having a
relationship. Before organizations can get their consumers to the point that
they are even willing to reduce the uncertainty about whatever it is that the
organizations are trying to sell (a product or an idea normally), there must be
something that catches the consumer’s attention. Consumers must become familiar
with the organization. This is generally done through branding. Think the Nike
swoosh or the Coca Cola label. This leads to the question of whether an
organization can use blogs to effectively help with the branding process.
Branding is an associative process. It is what people think
about when they see that logo or hear about a company. For instance, when
people see the Nike swoosh, they associate it with sports gear. The association
is with a particular quality of gear that a consumer can buy, usually at a
large markup of price, but people are willing to buy it still. Mostly because
they know (have reduced uncertainty) what they are getting. However, if you
were to ask a student at the University of Oregon what they thought when they
see the Nike logo, they may say something completely different. This is because
the CEO of Nike, Phil Knight, is an alumnus and regularly contributes to the
university. It would seem that, at this stage of branding, an organization
would not want to rely solely on their blog. Yes, they could use the blog to
help reveal the branding but they would also want to rely on traditional and
new campaigns at getting the word of their brand out. People have to be made
aware that there is a product and that the blog is there to help consumers
understand the product better.
The next stage in branding is creating familiarity with the
product(s) that a company offers. This is where a blog can really start to help
in the branding process. A blog is a place to develop a deeper understanding of
a company. Basically, this is where you can define your brand. If the blog is
kept by those who run the company or by those who know what the people in
charge of the company want for that company, this helps consumers get to know
the people of the company better. This is important because people want to know
the people behind a brand before they support what the brand stands for. As I
have mentioned in other blogs, I work at a church. This, to me, is like when a
person is invited to church for the first time. Usually, if they accept the
invitation, it is because they know and trust the person who invited them not
because they are necessarily interested in what the church has to offer. It is
in this vein of thought that a company that decides to start a blog to brand
themselves should work. There is a possibility of developing relationships
online but that is only if there is someone for the consumers to develop that
relationship with.
If a company works on getting the public familiar with their
brand, they can then start to build trust. This works a little different from
people to people relationships because, usually, both people exchange
information to reduce uncertainty in the relationship. However, the burden to
reduce uncertainty in a relationship between an organization and their public
falls firmly on the shoulders of the organization. This is where blogs are
useful but they can also be used to measure the success of the attempts at
reducing that uncertainty by said organizations. One of the ways this could be
measured by the companies using blogs is by monitoring the comments section. As
a company helps its consumers feelings of uncertainty reduce, the amount of
interaction between the two should increase. A lot of companies would only
measure this by looking at the increase in the consumption of their goods but I
think a better way to measure that would be by looking at the comments left on
the blog.
If people actually trust the company then they would feel
more comfortable letting the company know when it is doing well and, more
importantly, when it is doing badly. The
comments left by those who try to help the company improve show that the
consumer has a sense of ownership. This is a measurement of success in
branding. A good example of this is the branding for college sports teams. One
of the goals of sports teams, besides winning of course, is to increase participation
from those who support the team and to widen their reached audience. If you
ever talked to someone who is a fan of a particular team about that team, you
can gain a sense of the ownership that person has with the organization. While
talking about their team, usually they use the pronoun “we” even if they do not
play for the team or go to the school the team represents. Even if the team is
doing poorly, the person will still use the term “we” but they will then offer
what they believe to be the answer to the problems their team is facing. This
shows ownership in the same way that the comments on a blog offering opinions
on how to better serve them do. If a person did not feel ownership of the
company, they would normally just switch to a different company.
This desire for a company to offer a better brand is what
leads to commitment, the final stage of branding. I do not think that a company
will get to this stage just by having a blog; however, if the blog is run
appropriately and is used to reduce the uncertainty of new consumers while
allowing for current consumers to feel as though they belong and can trust the company,
then the use of a blog is most certainly a good tool for branding.
I started this blog off with the cat picture for two
reasons. The first reason is that I find it extremely funny and just wanted to
share it with you. The second reason is that I believe this picture puts into
perspective the idea of crowd sourcing on the internet. The idea behind crowd sourcing is that the
internet could be used for political, journalistic, or democratic reasons. The
idea is that, if offered the chance, people would use crowd sourcing to
increase the effectiveness or quality of journalism or that the political and
democratic processes could allow for more input from the general public in
order to make the process a better one. The problem with this idea is that, as
an article from UC Berkley’s News Center stated, the internet is still
dominated by those from a higher socio-economic status. Basically, those who
have college degrees are the ones who are producing on-line content. The
digital divide between those who have a college degree and those who do not as
it pertains to the production of internet content.
So, you may be asking yourself how that ties in with the
picture and the ideal of the internet versus the reality. The idea behind crowd
sourcing is really a nice idea but it is predicated on the idea that people
actually want to produce content when the reality is that more people are happy
just being consumers of content. If we
look at the website Reddit.com we get a good example of how this works. On the
website people post content. This would represent that smaller group of people
who actually produce their own content. However, the interaction does not stop
there. Then people who consume the content decide whether they like it or not.
They do this by voting the content up or down.
This brings me to my next point. It is that, through the
participation of “liking” something or voting it up or down on websites like
Youtube and Reddit the people that some consider to be left out are actually
letting their opinions be heard. This goes against the idea of crowd sourcing
because those who say that crowd sourcing is the best way would be looking for
the answers in the comment sections of the blogs and videos that the people
voted up or down without realizing that the answers they seek are actually in
the votes themselves.
As I said before, not everyone is going to want to produce
content but that does not mean that everyone does not want their voice heard.
The way that they accomplish this is by supporting the ideas and content that
they like. This is also a good way to measure what the general public thinks is
important. In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned the story of how Reddit
helped an environmental group save some whales by helping increase awareness
about the plight that the whales were going through. This happened but not in
the way that the group wanted because they wanted a, to them, meaningful name
given to the whale. Instead, in large part because of Reddit, the name of the
whale became Mr. Splashypants. This is an excellent illustration of what the
general public considers important. The
people who frequent Reddit considered the saving of the whale to be important
but they still wanted it on their terms. They wanted a much less “meaningful”
name than what the people of the environmental group wanted.
So, in that instance, you have a good example of crowd
sourcing working but not in the way that so many intend for it to. It is funny that we have this tool and so many
experts expect the general public to use it in the manner that they have
designated as appropriate but internet users have said otherwise. This is sort
of like if someone had given a person a hammer in a room full of nails, told
them that the purpose of the hammer was only to pry things loose and then got
mad when that person started hammering the nails into some wood.
That is not to say that crowd sourcing will never work. For
instance, there is a website http://www.lolcatbible.com/
. The Lol Cat Bible is an example of crowd sourcing. If a Christian started the
project, the project was not the ultimate goal. The first picture that I posted
was an example of lolcats. With these memes come a particular style of
communication and this has become very popular. So someone took this style of speech
and started a project of transposing the Bible into lolcat speech. In order for
this to happen, people who might have never read the Bible will end up reading
the Bible. Not only that but the people who help with this project had to think
about what the Bible was saying in order to help transpose the words into
lolcat speak. The ultimate goal here would be for people to read the Bible and
it would have been accomplished through as act of crowd sourcing.
The internet has a rich culture and I think it would be a
mistake to try and change the culture to fit the tool. Rather, we should make
the tool work for the culture. There are a lot of personalities that have sway
over people online. Not because they stand for any political affiliation or
because they are an awesome journalist but because they understand and pander
to the internet culture. Wil Wheaton, star of Star Trek the Next Generation and the movie Stand by Me is one of those people. He has a show on a Youtube
channel and because people like his show they will also listen to what he has
to say about other issues. He knows how to make the internet work for him.
Another example of this is a game caster called Husky Starcraft. Husky and
several of his roommates have thousands of followers online and is an activist
for online freedoms. Because he knows the culture he is able to affect change.
This is something that we, as communicators should understand. We approach
audiences differently depending in who they are. It would make sense to do the
same when it came to the internet.
I belong to a United Methodist Church. I share this to give
an idea of part of my make-up as it pertains to communication. I am also a
certified lay speaker for the United Methodist Church. When Methodism started
as a denomination, John and Charles Wesley made great use of lay preachers. A circuit
preacher would ride his circuit and visit a particular church or city once a
month so that he could serve communion. This is important to note because that
meant that for the rest of the time the church was run by lay people. People,
who had no formal training but who cared enough about their faith and about their
churches, were put in charge of the churches and were responsible for the
preaching. This is just one example of an organization allowing “common” people
to communicate with a larger audience. This is something that blogs now do.
They help to give voice to common people. This can be considered a good thing because of
the natural characteristics of independent online journalist, otherwise known
as bloggers. I must make a distinction here and that is the fact that I am not referring
to those who use blogs for personal reasons. There is a large number of people who share
personal stories and use blogs as sort of a cathartic exercise and this is not
a bad thing but, from a journalistic standpoint, not particularly useful or newsworthy. I believe that blogs can be a good thing but there
needs to be some work done before it can be considered a viable option for
news.
It is natural to
consider that if it is a good thing to get more bloggers involved in the news
process then there must be something wrong with the traditional process of
journalism. To be sure, John Stewart in his satirical news show, The Daily Show with John Stewart, spends
a large amount of time criticizing news organizations. In an article in the
journal, Journalism, Mark Deuze from
Indiana University writes about a commonality found in most journalists from
all around the world. Deuze wrote that “comparing
21 countries, Weaver found support for claims that the characteristics of
journalists are largely similar worldwide.” This, by itself, would not
necessarily be a bad thing. It could be considered good that journalists are
very similar because at least that guarantees a certain level of
professionalism from journalists. However, there is more to consider. Deuze
also wrote that some critics have stated that it is this view that is to blame
for “the news media’s inability to engage citizens.” Journalists seem to have a
problem connecting with their audiences and this has resulted in a loss of revenue
for newspapers. In an article from stateofthemedia.org they discussed the loss
of advertisement revenue that newspapers are feeling.
Here is one of the graphs:
But the graph also shows that the advertisement revenues are not
being picked up by online sources. This is a curious phenomenon unless you take
the culture of the internet into account. In his TED talk James Surowieki made
the point that most bloggers and people sharing information online are doing so
for free. If this is the case, then it would be natural that companies do not
have to spend as much money on advertisement. But, if revenue is the measuring
stick for the outreach of a particular medium, then blogs would seem to be less
pertinent than traditional journalism.
In several TED talks and a couple of articles, there is a focus on
the collaborative nature of blogging. This is not to say that blogs are written
by multiple people but through multiple contributors to a particular blog
website we get a more complete view of a particular story. Again, Surowieki
during his talk told of a phenomenon that occurs when a group gets together to
make a decision. With multiple inputs comes the likelihood of a better quality
of content. There was a danger that Surowieki warned of though. That is the
fact that this only works if people stay independent in their thought. Serena
Carpenter, an associate professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism
and Mass Communication at Arizona State University did some research and found
that citizen journalism (bloggers) largely wrote about controversial articles
all from one viewpoint. So, it would seem that bloggers are more likely to
share a viewpoint than traditional journalist. Carpenter also found that online
newspaper articles were more likely to quote an official source (75%) than bloggers
were (30.3%).
I give this information to make the determination that both
newspapers and bloggers can stand to do their job a little bit better.
Newspapers seem to have a more professional approach to the dissemination of
information. However, it does not matter how professional a group is if the
information that is be disseminated by them is not being read by the public. It
would behoove the newspapers to incorporate a way to meet the cultural needs of
their readers. By this, I mean they should find a way to put out good
information in a personable way that their readers can relate to. In her TED
talk, Mena Trott, talked about how the stories told in blogs were what
interested people. It is this narrative form that many newspapers are missing.
They take a cold approach to stories that should perhaps have a little more of
a “human touch” to them.
Blogs, on the other hand, need some professionalism added to give
them some credibility. They do not use as many credible sources as newspapers
do. Whether this is due to laziness or if they just do not have access to good
sources is irrelevant. People need to have good information if the internet is
to be a viable medium for news. It is refreshing that blogging is still more of
a labor of love rather than revenue based (for the bloggers not the companies
providing the service to the bloggers) because this helps to ensure that
whatever news is given from the blogs, it is not funded by special interest.
Or, even if it is, it is fairly apparent who the special interest is rather
than having to dig through some news company’s funding. Blogs have a lot of
potential for being a viable news source. It is really up to the bloggers and
to the online community to ensure that this happens so that, like in the
Methodist and so many other communication traditions, even the “common” person
has a voice.
Throughout history, most large
social changes where met with resistance. If we look at the Civil Rights
Movement in the United States, there was social unrest. People wanted to be
treated like people and those who had the power where afraid to give it up. The
same can be said for the advent of cultures. In the early history of the
Christian church, Christians were just another Jewish sect but, as it became
apparent they were not going anywhere, they were met with resistance from the
Sanhedrin, the established Jewish leadership of the day. It is fair to say that
a similar change is occurring within the communications society. Communications
has come a long way since drawings on cave walls were used to tell stories.
When Gutenberg combined technology with communications, it opened up a whole
new level to communications. Communication began to have mass and, with this
mass, came a new culture. Like any culture, though, certain people, the early adapters of the day, grabbed power within this new culture and became
established powers. Eventually, communication became even more widespread with
the radio and television and a few more people or organizations were allowed
into the culture that mass media and mass communications had constructed.
Finally, the Internet was invented.
After a few years, some companies
realized the potential for social media networking. This did something to the
communications culture that had never been done before. It opened it up to
everybody. It completely changed the culture. This is important because, like
those early Christians and those who were fighting for civil rights, this
movement has been met with resistance. There are several reports that discuss
the lack of adoption of social network sites by organizations and businesses.
Even when these sites are adopted by organizations and businesses it appears
that they adopt an older model of communication while using social media. By
that I mean that they use these social networks to simply promote a particular
object or idea. This may have worked with traditional forms of mass media but
as the Internet has been made available to almost everyone the interesting
effect of that is that the Internet and social media has broken into homogeneous groups. The reason that this is important and the reason that businesses and organizations
should perhaps not look down on social media as an outlet is that, if they
allow the different sites work in the manner in which they were intended, they
may find it easier to accomplish their goals. It is true that the goals would
not be accomplished in the manner to which they are accustomed and therein lies
the problem.
It is difficult to convince those
who are uncomfortable with something that they can and should use that very
thing to accomplish their goals. Communicators are no different. In his TED
talk, Alexis Ohanian makes the point that a group named Greenpeace was trying
to save humpback whales. They wanted to name a whale that they planned on
tracking and had come up with all sorts of meaningful names to give the whale.
The Internet, however, decided on the less meaningful (to Greenpeace anyways)
name of Mr. Splashy Pants. With the immense popularity of Mr. Splashy Pants
came the needed pressure to help guard humpback whales. This is an important
lesson in that a group that truly wants to use the Internet and social sites to
affect change in the world should let those sites and the people that frequent
them be themselves. Even if those people who use social media do not act the
way that the organization thinks they should act or think the way they think
they should think, things will still get done and goals can still be met.
An example of this happened fairly
recently on YouTube. YouTube, like most social media sites, are specialized to
allow for people to join those homogeneous groups that they seek. One of the
channels on YouTube is called Geek and Sundry. On this channel is a show called
Table Top that is hosted by Wil Wheaton (any Trekkie nerds reading this can
give a squeal of delight). Table Top creators Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day are
big into “nerd” culture and so many of the followers of this channel or those
who may be labeled nerd or geek. They decided to create what they called
International Table Top Day. The point of this day was to get as many people in
as many places as they could to play board games throughout the day. This
became a huge event. They had board game days all over the world. There were
events in all 50 states and on all 7 continents (yes, even in Antarctica). The hash-tag #tabletop trended on Twitter all day and by the end of the day there
had been a large number of people reached.
I bring this up because Wil Wheaton
shares on YouTube the reason that board games are so important to him. The
reason that board games are important to him is because that is how he gets
close to his friends and family. The most notable of his family are his two
adopted sons. Now, if a group whose sole purpose was to build family unity had
gotten on board with this such as the group Focus on the Family, which is a
faith based, conservative group that focus on the health of the nuclear family,
their message could have been spread world-wide. This is not to say that Focus
on the Family is not effective but their website, http://www.focusonthefamily.com/,
shows that they use a traditional form of communication. Yes, they have a
Facebook group and a Twitter account but these accounts are just an extension
of their traditional communication. If
they had partnered with the Geek and Sundry and Table Top they could have
extended their influence or at least their message to a group of people who
otherwise would not have known about them. Also, if Wil Wheaton’s experience
with board games is shared by those played on that day and families were
brought closer together, then Focus on the Family’s ultimate goal would have
been accomplished.
I do not say this to degrade Focus
on the Family but to point out that it is time that organizations allow the
Internet to work the way it was intended. It has its own way of communicating
and this makes traditional communicators nervous. But if these organizations
are smart they will allow these social sites to work with them; not for them or
against them. That is an important distinction and one that most traditional
communicators are not necessarily comfortable with.
In this day and age, we are very
concerned with connectivity. People are connected to each other through social
media. Consumers are connected to the companies they patronize through mobile
marketing and current technology. Ideas are being passed around at an
incredible rate that the world has never seen before. Therefore, it is
important to take stock in who today’s technology is meant to serve. Since the
beginning of time, people have been making advancements in technology. With
each advancement there were people who used the technology came up with
innovative ways to use the technology that was presented to them. Thomas Edison
once said, “I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting from
where the last person left off.” Jan Chipchase, in his TED talk, echoed those
sentiments. Not for himself but for the general public. He studied how people
used the technology they were given and came up with four ideas that take what
Edison was saying and expands it to the general public. The idea that we should
not only allow access to technology but expand it is because of these four
ideas: if you want a big idea, you need to embrace everyone on the planet; the
speed of adoption of things is going to be fast; the street will innovate
things as long as it meets base needs in ways we cannot anticipate; learn how
to listen to the public. This was what he thought the expansion of technology
would bring.
If Chipchase is correct, then we
are facing an extremely important problem: the Digital Divide. “The “Digital
Divide” is defined as the gap between those with regular, effective access and ability
to use digital technologies and those without (BOYERA).” If the “street” is
where most innovation happens then it is important to get these technologies to
those who will benefit most from them. In a previous blog I noted how Clay
Shirkey believed that the best way to a good democracy was through open source
coding. The idea is that the general public (or “the street” according to
Chipchase) is better suited to lead in innovation and provide better ideas than
those who come up with the technology.
Mobile marketing seems to work
because they allow the users of the social media to generate their own content.
By this, they allow the users to use the social media in order to personalize
their own discounts. The companies hope to develop long term relationships with
their consumers through their participation of the discounts they offer. This
idea ties in with the idea from Jan Chipchase’s TED talk in which he said that “the
street (consumers in this case) will innovate things as long as it meets base
needs.” This idea is mirrored in the
article about mobile marketing by Kaplan in which the four “I’s” of mobile
marketing are discussed. Those I’s represent the terms: individualize,
initiate, integrate, and involve. All of these pertain to the company’s
consumers and their use of the technology they have available to them. The companies
have decided to connect with the consumers through social media and technology
and allow them to decide how to best use the goods based upon the individuals’
needs.
So the real question becomes
though, who is this individualized form of advertising or this individualized
consumer based marketing really helping. There are groups who are working hard
to get advertising completely out of newspapers. This is because they want to
individualize marketing for each person (Mutter, 2013). The idea of mass media is
changing rapidly. I think it should no longer be called mass. A better term for
it is individual media consumption. In
the Mutter blog (2013), the president of one of the companies that was
interviewed said that customer loyalty due to cellular interactions was higher
than expected. However, if the main idea of the company is to sell stuff and
the consumers do not get any more input other than how and when they buy, then
it would seem that the company is still in charge. We associate power with the
ability to buy but real power would be able to influence what is sold, how it
is sold, and the price at which it is sold.
I know that those who are fans of a
free market because of the natural regulation of price cost that competition
creates would argue that this is just a business taking advantage of a
technology that is available and there is nothing wrong with this. I agree with
this in principle but if you take a closer look at the situation it becomes
apparent that, in reality, this sort of marketing tends to limit the number of
options shown in a particular market. Usually it is the businesses that already
have a foothold in technological marketing that benefits the most. This is one
of the benefits of paper over the internet. A newspaper or a magazine will
usually have several companies advertising similar products throughout. A
website or media marketing on the other hand only does one advertisement per
page. Yes, in a newspaper or magazine, those who had more money got the premium
advertisement spots but people still got multiple sources to choose from. If
you wanted groceries there was Wal Mart, Winn Dixie, Publix, and even the Mom
and Pop shops downtown that could advertise in the local paper. But if you get
media marketing, you normally get whatever company is most well-known for
whatever the consumer is looking for.
In 2007, when the British Band
Radiohead released its new album, they allowed their fans to download it online
for whatever price they (the fans) wanted. This shows true innovation from a
group who realized what was really important. Radiohead realized that their
real income came, not from the sales of an album, but from the fans who would
then buy concert tickets, band merchandise, and even from an expanded album
they would release later that year. This shows the evolution of technology and
what can happen when “the street” is allowed to take part in technology. The evolution started with Apple who gave us
the Ipod. This piece of technology allowed for the transportation of not just a
little bit of music (a la Walkman or portable CD players) but the entirety of a
person’s musical consumption. They individualized their marketing but it was
for a price. Usually, you could buy music for 99 cents a song. Radiohead took
the evolution one step further because they realized that their fans were
looking for something even more personalized. They wanted the experience for
their fans to be less business, less technical, and more human. This is
something that some Fabian Hemmert is working on for cellular devices. He gave
a TED talk that showed an understanding of what people are intrinsically
looking for but technology has yet to deliver. He is working on making a cell
phone that is functional but satisfies the human experience as well.
People
are seeking a human experience from technology. They want to innovate. They
want to integrate. They want to input their ideas. But the question remains as
to whether consumers of media are actually given these things or are they given
the illusion of having these things when it comes to actually important
influence. Perhaps if there was an increase in the ideas through the expansion
of availability of technology to those who normally do not have it, then we
might see what real innovation and real influence are.
All the opportunities for communication...
Actually, this is not half of what we can now use.
