Final Thoughts...For Now

Good evening, everyone! I hope you all have enjoyed reading my blog on strategic communication and emerging media. This will be my last blog post for a while, as my graduate course has ended. I want to sum up some of the things that I have learned over the past nine weeks, namely about technology and its usage in society and in communications. Technology is everywhere, and we are unable to avoid it, no matter what we do to try. We are reliant on several forms of technology, such as alarm clocks, coffeepots, cars, and computers. We need some type of technology to handle different aspects of our daily lives, such as work, banking, shopping, healthcare, etc. Without technology, much of our society, and the world, would come to a standstill.

The last assignment for this class involved viewing three videos, and one of them was a YouTube video featuring an amalgamation of AT&T commercials from 1993 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnQ8EkwXJ0). I remember many of these commercials from my childhood, and back then, I was amazed at the different types of technological innovations the world had to offer. I used to imagine myself using the various technologies in my adult life, thinking that it would be so cool to be able to use a video phone or a car phone. Ah, the mind of a child… Who would have thought that twenty years later we would see many of these projected inventions being used on a daily basis? It’s amazing when you think about it, huh? Back then, it was novel to see any of these inventions, and only the rich (or well off) and famous had them, so it was no problem to go about daily life without these things for regular people. Now, nearly everyone has some version of these technologies, and we have become jaded concerning them, and we often take them for granted.

Think about it: what would you do without your computer or your smartphone? Would you be able to carry on your daily activities without the Internet? How often do you think of the value or importance of the technology we have available to us? Our society relies so much on media that it would seem unfathomable to go a day without them. Even in my personal life, I have noticed how I am always plugged in to the Internet through some form of digital technology. I always have my smartphone with me, and when I do not have my laptop, I have my NOOK. Sometimes I wonder, why have we become so ensconced with maintaining some type of connection? As a person, I find that this constant connection becomes burdensome at times, but as a future communication strategist, I know that having this connection is vital to staying ahead of the curve when it comes to current and emerging media.

In his TED video, “The next 5,000 days of the web,” Kevin Kelly stated, “Every screen in the world is looking into the one machine. These are all basically portals into that one machine” (Kelly, 2007, “The next 5,000 days”), meaning we have to think of the Internet as a machine and our mobile devices as portals into this machine. How does this relate to communication strategists? Media changes on a constant basis, and we see the current forms of traditional media slowing phasing out and becoming irrelevant as newer, digital formats emerge. Many of these digital formats include such devices as the Google Glass and the Google Watch (http://www.techradar.com/us/news/portable-devices/google-watch-release-date-news-and-rumours-1151012). With things like the news, magazines, and radio, transitioning to digital formats, it is important for communication strategists to be able to use these devices (portals) effectively and strategically in order to tap into the machine (Internet) to communicate to the masses.

During my undergraduate program, I studied technical and professional communication, and I learned a great deal about the importance of clear, concise, and correct communication. That program served as a backdrop for my graduate program, which has shown me the other side of the communication spectrum. The things I learned in my graduate courses over these past nine weeks have given me a greater understanding of the importance of being able to communicate effectively, especially when it comes to topics such as media convergence, branding, crowdsourcing, and social media, to name a few. Although this blog was a requirement for my graduate course, I thoroughly enjoyed writing about the weekly topics we discussed in class. I have learned so much in the last nine weeks, and I hope I have been able to help you learn more about strategic communication, too, especially about the role of technology in our daily communications. While I have no more classes until January, I do plan to continue writing about different topics involving strategic communication and emerging media, just not as frequently. Thank you for taking the time out to read my blog, and I hope to write to you again soon!

Reference

Kelly, Kevin. (2007, December). “The next 5,000 days of the web.” TED Partner Series. TED Conferences, LLC. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Children’s Use of Technology

I want to touch on a familiar topic that you may find interesting: technology and children. Many of you may think that technology is great and that all children should be able to use the different technologies out there, while some of you feel that technology has held our children back from reaching their full potentials. In the last discussion forum in my class, the professor asked three questions about the use of technology by children, and they all got me to thinking about the benefits and disadvantages of technology:

• What are some of the things a parent can do to maximize the benefits of technology with their children while minimizing the harmful effects from technology?
• One of the readings this week talked about imagination in children being replaced by PCs. Do you agree with this generalization? If so, what can we do to encourage imaginative play in our children?
• Several of the readings suggested that technology appears to be somewhat intuitive to small children today. On the other hand, it is increasingly complex to older people. The only similarity is how the old and young consume online content is that both groups tend to be very "trusting" and somewhat naive when dealing with online content. What can parents, educators and scholars do to help warn the very young and old about the dangers of digital communications?

These three questions raise some very important issues concerning children and technology. I would be remiss not to write on this subject, especially considering my husband and I have three children.

Technology seems to have taken over every aspect of our lives, including our children’s lives. Our children are ages 7, 6, and 3, and they all know how to use our cell phones, tablets, and laptop to a degree respective to their ages. One of our main concerns as parents is making sure that these media platforms are beneficial to our children’s education and imaginations. Too often, we see children that know how to operate digital technology but have trouble reading, writing, and thinking critically. Our boys are old enough to watch shows like SpongeBob, Power Rangers, Sanjay and Craig, etc., all of which we feel do not give them any educational benefits, but they want to visit the websites for these shows to play games associated with the shows, and sometimes we indulge them. I am fine with the games on Nickelodeon’s website because there are games that challenge them to strategize and to think critically, but I have banned them from logging on to Cartoon Network, because there are too many shows on that channel that are highly inappropriate for children to watch. 

One of our rules we set for our children when using these media is to look at something educational. I feel it is our responsibility to ensure that they visit websites and use apps that offer enrichment. My boys’ teachers give us websites that we can use at home, like www.starfall.com and www.ABCya.com, that offer additional practice on all the subjects they study in school. I also signed up for ABCMouse.com so that my three-year-old can learn even more than what we and her Head Start teachers are already teaching her. I especially like ABCMouse.com because it teaches her all of the fundamentals a preschooler should know in preparation for kindergarten, and it teaches her the basics of how to use a wired mouse. There are also toys that incorporate different technological advances to teach children basics like ABCs, 123s, shapes, colors, and emotions. My daughter has three different stuffed animals that teach her these things through song and dance. One of them, the LeapFrog My Pal Violet, actually teaches her how to spell her name. Cool, huh? With all of this computer time and involvement with technology, there comes the need for boundaries, especially on time limits, on what they play with,  and on what they are viewing. 

(from left to right) My daughter's Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Love to Play Puppy (http://www.fisher-price.com/en_US/brands/laughandlearn/products/30407), her VTech Peek at Me Bunny (http://www.vtechkids.com/product/detail/1939/Peek_at_Me_Bunny), and her Leapfrog My Pal Violet (http://shop.leapfrog.com/leapfrog/jump/My-Pal-Scout-%26-Violet/productDetail/Toddler-Toys-Sale/lfprod19156/cat800014?selectedColor=&selectedSize=&navAction=push&navCount=0&categoryNav=false)

Without these boundaries, children become addicted into the digital world and miss life and opportunities for learning and imaginative play. Don’t get me wrong, technology is awesome and there is nothing wrong with it. It is the use and abuse of technology that causes problems. Often, I see how parents plop their children in front of a TV and allow their children to watch cartoons for hours on end, while parents with older children fail to check their children’s use of PCs, mobile phones, and other digital devices. Why is this a common occurrence? We can attribute this to the fact that many of us parents came of age during the Internet age (McMillan & Morrison, 2008, p. 78), and our children are reaping the benefits of advanced technology.

I was born in the 1980s, and I witnessed the birth of the Internet and its slow but steady rise in popularity. I remember when we first had access to the Internet in my computer science class, which was back in the mid-1990s. As I think back, I see how amazing the Internet seemed in our eyes, and it was equally awe-inspiring when we were able to search for different topics and get the information we were looking for.  As I got older, I used the Internet more and more, especially to write research papers, but more so to connect with my friends on the new social media sites that were appearing (i.e. MySpace, hi5, kiwibox). Looking back, I see how I was slowing becoming addicted, to an extent, to the use of the Internet. In their article, “Coming of age with the Internet,” which was published in New Media and Society in 2008, Sally J. McMillan and Margaret Morrison discuss the Internet and its integration into the lives of those people who grew up alongside the Internet. Their study found that many of the “participants saw themselves as relative dinosaurs by comparison to their younger relatives who are learning technology at a much younger age” (McMillan & Morrison, 2008, p. 80). We see this to be true in our children now, who are growing up as technological innovations emerge on the scene.

With so many innovations and with so much technology integrated in our lives, especially through PCs, it is easy to suggest that our children’s imaginations are slowing being replaced with PCs. However, I disagree with this generalization, because I have witnessed in my own children how computers have enhanced their imaginations. My children all know how to use digital technology to some extent, and I have noticed how once they finish using the computer, cell phone, or tablet, they will go outside or to their room and play out what they have learned on the educational apps or websites they had visited. They took what they learned and integrated it into their daily play. 

In her TED video, Shilo Shiv Suleman describes Khoya, an interactive book app that allows children to enter the stories they read. This app works by integrating the app and actual outdoor play, “linking together magic, the earth and technology” (Suleman, 2011, “Using tech”). I thought this was an awesome idea, because children of this generation, many of them having grown up along with the Internet, have become so technically dependent and integrated that they have no idea what it means to have fun without some type of digital hardware. They do not know how to go outside and use their imaginations. Parents could use apps like these to encourage and enhance imaginative play and critical thinking in their children.

With the ready availability of technology, it is easy for our children to fall into danger. There are several predators out in the world that look for naïve, unsuspecting children to prey on, so it is very important that we as parents, educators, and scholars make sure that the proper programs and parental controls are put in place to block inappropriate content. This is easy to do with younger children, but trying to do this poses a greater problem with older children and teenagers. In their article, “The Role of Mobile Phones in Family Communication,” which was published in Children and Society in 2009, Kerry Devitt and Debi Roker found that “many young people and parents considered that a young person might have a sense of ‘false security’ in having a mobile phone, and take more risks as a result” (p. 200). 

I found this to be true because I also felt that same sense of security with my cell phone as a teenager. The authors also found that parents believed that “they had less control over their child’s private life as a result of mobile phones, and were often wary about what might be being planned without their knowledge. I also took more risks than I normally would because I had a cell phone. In hindsight, I see how I had too much freedom as a teenager with my cell phone and put myself in danger with the blatant disregard for my safety because of trusting in its ability to connect me to safety (i.e. my parents, the police). Again, boundaries come into play, as they are key to ensuring our children’s safety in the digital world.

Technology provides users with so many opportunities to do great things, and it is a great asset to have in the home and in schools, especially for our children. It gives parents the ability to enhance their children’s minds and foster imaginative play, and it gives educators the tools they need to enrich their class curricula. Technology has its many advantages, but there are also risks involved with using it, so it is imperative that parents and educators find ways to protect their children and students from the potential pitfalls of technology. I believe that a hybrid of technology and “normal” child’s play is our best bet for ensuring that our children have the best of both worlds. Don’t you agree?

References

Devitt, Kerry & Debi Roker. (2009). “The role of mobile phones in family communication.” Children and Society 23: 189-202. DOI: 10.1111/j.1099-0860.2008.00166.x

McMillan, Sally J. & Margaret Morrison. (2008). “Coming of age with the Internet: A qualitative exploration of how the Internet has become an integral part of young people’s lives.” New Media and Society 8(1): 73-95. DOI: 10.1177/1461444806059871

Suleman, Shilo Shiv. (2011, December). “Using tech to enable dreaming.” TED Conferences, LLC. Podcast retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/shilo_shiv_suleman_using_tech_to_enable_dreaming.html?quote=1330

Branding: Building a Great Reputation Online

This week in one of my graduate courses, we learned about online branding. What is branding, you may ask? According to Geoffrey O. Simmons, branding is “the process of creating value through the provision of a compelling and consistent offer and customer experience that will satisfy customers and keep them coming back” (Simmons, 2007, p. 544). Why is branding important? While thinking about the discussion topic for this week, I kept thinking about the effects of having a good reputation and a bad reputation. Just as it is important to have a solid and generally favorable reputation, so is having the right branding strategy, but proper strategic communication is key.

Think of all of the different brands of products out there. Everywhere we look we see ads from popular companies like Coca-Cola, Aflac, AT&T, Lexus, McDonald’s, and Wells Fargo promoting their products. In these numerous ads, each company claims that their products are far better than their competitors’ offerings, and we believe them. Why do we believe in the products these companies offer? Take Allstate Insurance Company, for instance. Their recent television commercials feature “Mayhem,” who offers us viewers different scenarios in which having insurance is indispensable. For example, Mayhem has portrayed heavy snow on a roof, a faulty water heater, a test driver who crashes a person’s motorcycle, and a maid who fell down her client’s staircase while on the job. After each scenario, the commercials always end with their signature slogan, “With Allstate, you’re in good hands.” (Here is a link to a video featuring a majority of all of Allstate’s Mayhem commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw9hQNdXYbI. Enjoy!) Mayhem presents each scenario in a comical way, and maybe this is why I and many other viewers love watching Allstate’s commercials so much. Mayhem shows viewers how it is important to have the best insurance available on the market, which he believes is Allstate. Through comedy, Allstate has found a way to draw customers in to research their products and give them a try. Allstate has figured out a great strategy for branding itself as the go-to insurance company for worst-case scenarios.

Branding, specifically effective branding, is important to every business and to every professional individual that wants to have a solid foundation in the economy and in the digital world. Without the proper communication strategies, businesses will fail to reach their targeted audiences. In recent news, Guido Barilla, the head of the Barilla pasta brand, stated that his company will not feature any gay actors in its commercials, a controversial statement which set off several LGBTQ activists in Italy and elsewhere. He made the following statement:

We have a slightly different culture," Barilla said, per a Huffington Post translation of the interview. "For us, the 'sacral family' remains one of the company’s core values. Our family is a traditional family. If gays like our pasta and our advertisings, they will eat our pasta; if they don’t like that, they will eat someone else’s pasta. You can’t always please everyone not to displease anyone. I would not do a commercial with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect toward homosexuals – who have the right to do whatever they want without disturbing others – but because I don’t agree with them, and I think we want to talk to traditional families. The women are crucial in this. (Sieczkowski, 2013, “Barilla”)

Despite Barilla explaining his reasons for stating this and affirmed that he respects all people despite their sexual orientation, activists have called for a worldwide boycott of the pasta brand, “which is the world's largest pasta producer, according to Italy's Gazzetta del Sud” (Sieczkowski, 2013, “Barilla”). A similar controversy surrounded Dan Cathy, the president and CEO of Chik-Fil-A, who stated, “We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit” (HuffPost Gay Voices, 2012, “Dan Cathy”). Barilla and Cathy’s statements prove how the proper communication can make or break a company. Despite the predictable backlash and drop in sales Barilla will have, I’m sure the brand will still remain popular, because it produces quality products that people and restaurants have come to rely on in their kitchens.

Branding is everywhere, whether it is good branding or bad. Our discussion question for this week asked us how can we help Troy University, our school, improve its branding. Troy has a myriad of phrases that define what the school stands for and believes in. Everywhere I go in Montgomery, AL, I see some symbol or slogan for Troy, especially the closer I get to the downtown area. I recommended that Professor Donna Schubert, Troy University's Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communication, increase the radio and television output of Troy’s brand to accommodate for the changes in media and for the transition from traditional media platforms to digital ones. I also recommended that Troy use only one of its many slogans: “In class, online, within reach.”

I stated that this was the best slogan because Troy truly is a university that is within reach to any student that is willing to reach out and grab on to what Troy has to offer. When prospective students see this slogan, they know that Troy is a university that they can gain access to from anywhere in the world. In addition, for those prospective students who are considering a college or university but cannot attend in the traditional sense, Troy offers online degree programs in different fields that will appeal to any prospective student. In my academic career, I have found that I can take Troy with me wherever I go. When I am not on the Montgomery campus, I can still access Troy through my laptop, cell phone, and/or tablet. It is because of this wide accessibility that I chose Troy as the place to grow as a student and as a person.

How are companies like Chik-Fil-A and Barilla able to survive controversies and the subsequent backlashes from the controversies? How do we as consumers become loyal customers to particular brands, schools, artists, etc.? Larry Chiagouris and Brant Wansley argue that this is possible because of four key stages that consumers go through when building a consumer-producer relationship with the businesses they frequent: awareness, familiarity, trust, and commitment (Chiagouris & Wansley, 2000, p. 1).

Consumers become aware of the companies and their products and services, and they develop a familiarity by “acquiring an appreciation of the products or services offered” (Chiagouris & Wansley, 2000, p. 2). They begin to trust the company and its brand “because of the perceived benefits derived from particular features,” and they commit to the brands through “transaction[s] that consummate the relationship[s]” these companies have with their customers (Chiagouris & Wansley, 2000, p. 2). Through these four stages, consumers develop loyalties to brands, and as long as companies continue to deliver quality products, consumers will remain faithful. But how can companies transfer the relationships they have with their customers in the traditional market online?

The answer is simple: these companies must be able to offer the same products and services online in a convenient, user-friendly way that will not require too much effort or time on the consumers’ parts. Consumers want to be able to follow their favorite brands wherever they go, including online. As technology and media continue to transition to digital formats, companies must be able to maintain the same levels of service they offer in the traditional markets. Chiagouris and Wansley argue that brands must “capture the attention” of consumers and “build [customer] awareness” of their products by making sure that the consumers’ “Internet experience is being branded, not the product” (Chiagouris & Wansley, 2000, p. 4). They state that “companies that grasp the power of the Internet and its relationship building capability will discover an accelerated path to prosperity” (Chiagouris & Wansley, 2000, p. 5).

When customers fail to transition through all four stages of brand bonding, companies lose their credibility and eventually fall by the wayside. To ensure their places as “the best” of what they have to offer, companies must learn how to communicate strategically and effectively to improve and maintain their respective customer bases. This includes being able to navigate both the digital and traditional markets, and being able to utilize the resources that current and emerging media have to offer.

References

Chiagouris, Larry & Brant Wansley. (2000, January 1). “Branding on the internet.” Cleary University. Retrieved from ftp.cleary.edu/mkt/mkt415/mkt_415_m2_branding_on_the_internet.doc

HuffPost Gay Voices. (2012, July 26). “Dan Cathy, Chick-Fil-A president, on anti-gay stance: ‘Guilty as charged.’” TheHuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a-president-anti-gay_n_1680984.html

Sieczkowski, Cavan. (2013, September 26). “Barilla pasta won't feature gay families in ads, says critics can 'Eat another brand of pasta.’” TheHuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/barilla-pasta-anti-gay_n_3995679.html

Simmons, Geoffrey O. (2007, June). “i-Branding”: Developing the internet as a branding tool.” Marketing Intelligence & Planning 25(6): 544-562. DOI: 10.1108/02634500710819932

Who Gets the Credit? Crowdsourcing as the Newest Form of Group Work

I have done my fair share of group work, and I have typically been one of the few, or even the only group member, to do any work on the assignments. My experiences have led me to detest group work, but I know I must push my feelings toward group work to the side in order to become a successful communication strategists. In my graduate course, we learned about crowdsourcing and its usefulness for communication strategists. Daren C. Brabham gives a simple definition of crowdsourcing in his article, “Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving,” which was published in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies in 2008. He defines crowdsourcing as “the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call.” In even simpler terms, crowdsourcing is “a tool to gather collective intelligence for certain tasks” (Aitamurto, Leiponen, & Tee, 2011, p. 2). Our society uses crowdsourcing on a daily basis and in several ways, which extend from the most extensive of tasks to the simplest ones, and the biggest corporations to the individual consumer use crowdsourcing. Large companies employ crowdsourcing as a means to glean information from their consumers, and consumers employ crowdsourcing when looking for the best rates on hotels or the best places to go to for vacation.

Take TripAdvisor, for instance. TripAdvisor touts itself as being “the world's largest travel site” that “offers trusted advice from real travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools” (TripAdvisor, 2013, “About TripAdvisor”). I have used TripAdvisor on numerous occasions to plan vacations down to the minutest detail. My family and I depend on what the reviews say about certain locations, restaurants, places to visit, and things to do and we plan our vacation based on the best reviews. There was one instance, however, when I did not follow the reviews and paid the price for not listening to the “wisdom of the crowd” (Aitamurto, Leiponen, & Tee, 2011, p. 2).

I needed to find a hotel my family to stay in during our two-night visit to Pensacola. We were looking for something cheap but up to our standards, and we wanted something close to where we were going to be the majority of the trip. Now, the reviews we read about a particular hotel were very mixed, and with mixed reviews, the product could be either good or bad. Based on the reviews, we decided to book the hotel—big mistake! When we got there, I immediately knew we needed to get our money back and get our children out of there! After some finagling with the manager, we were able to get a refund. I used TripAdvisor again to find a better hotel, and this time we based our decision on the best reviews possible. We were able to find a great hotel close to the National Naval Aviation Museum within our price range and sleep soundly. We learned a valuable lesson that trip!

Although my example shows how crowdsourcing at its simplest level can have its advantages and its disadvantages, overall it is a proper technique to use when trying to solve complex or diffuse issues at any level. For instance, when companies use regular citizens to gather information for new products and technologies, they open up the door for fresh ideas that they would otherwise overlook because their Research and Development (R&D) teams have become conditioned to the problem they are trying to solve. These companies will be able to reach out to the crowd on the outside for solutions, and this crowd will be able to think outside of the box because they are not as knowledgeable about the product that they assume to know everything about it, and because they are not ready to accept defeat. Much like the individual performing a simple search for answers, businesses are able to use consumers to get the answers they need.

Crowdsourcing also allows users with little to no experience to work alongside those who are professionals to come up with solutions to issues companies need an outsider’s perspective on in order to make any progress. Professionals who participate in crowdsourcing “inspire others in the crowd to continue working” to become better in their skillsets (Brabham, Daren C., 2008, “Crowdsourcing as a Model”). Amateurs are able to see that they too can make it in the professional world when they see professionals winning crowdsourcing competitions. In addition, when companies pose complex problems to the crowd, they are able to rely on a group of users who are eager to use their skills, especially those who have just graduated and are looking for outlets to display their skills. Conversely, crowdsourcing allows companies to take advantage of users, especially those who are new to group contributions, which leads to this question: who gets the real credit in crowdsourcing?

Much like group work, crowdsourcing pools together the intelligence and wisdom of the crowd for the answers companies need. Yes, these companies compensate those whose ideas they use, but these companies stand to make millions of dollars on the ideas they glean from those whom they have only paid a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars as compensation. Brabham argues that “the intellectual labor the crowd performs is worth a lot more than winning solutions are paid” (Brabham, 2008, p. 83). In addition, crowdsourcing makes obsolete the skills of trained professionals because crowdsourcing gives companies the option to skip over the more expensive professionals and use the crowd for cheap labor. In his article, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing,” which was published in June 2006, Jeff Howe writes that crowdsourcing allows easier, digital methods to ice out professionals, such as stock photographers, by “creating a market for the work of amateur photographers” (Howe, 2006, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”). The reason for this is that “the product [photographers and other professionals] offer is no longer scarce” (Howe, 2006, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”). What crowdsourcing does is take away the novelty from the services skilled professionals offer.

Brabham and Howe’s articles lead me to believe that the crowd has shortchanged itself in that it will take the experience of working with major companies and using their skills over getting monetary compensation. Of course, money is not the main reason we want to do what we have gone to school for, but how can we not see that this is a form of exploitation? Is this a way of paying dues? I would like to think not, but with the various changes our society has undergone in the name of progress, it seems best to jump in with the group and get what we can than to stand on the sidelines and get left behind or worse—become obsolete.

References

Aitamurto, Tanja, Leiponen, Aija & Richard Tee. (2011, June). “The promise of idea crowdsourcing—Benefits, contexts, limitations.” White Paper, 1-30. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/963662/The_Promise_of_Idea_Crowdsourcing_Benefits_Contexts_Limitations

Brabham, Daren C. (2008). “Crowdsourcing as a model for problem solving: An introduction and cases.” Convergence 14(1): p. 75-90. DOI: 10.1177/1354856507084420

Howe, Jeff. (2006, June). “The rise of crowdsourcing.” Condé Nast Digital. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html

TripAdvisor. (2013). “About TripAdvisor.” TripAdvisor LLC. Retrieved from http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c6-About_Us.html

The Use of Blogs and Vlogs in Citizen Journalism

According to Mary Grace Antony and Ryan J. Thomas, citizen journalism is “the act of a citizen, or a group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information…[in order to] provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires” (Antony and Thomas, 2010, p. 1284). People have found that blogs give people an outlet to express themselves on personal, semi, and professional levels. They give users the opportunity to voice their opinions on subject matter that they feel is important to them and relevant to their communities. Blogs offer a way to promote new ideas, push established but little known ones by providing details about them, and gather the ideas and opinions of readers.

Many of the blogs and vlogs (video logs) I read are written by everyday citizens who have created a substantial following of readers because they offer information that people want. One such blogger is Franchesca Ramsey, who goes by the names “chescalocs” and “chescaleigh” on her YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/user/chescalocs and http://www.youtube.com/user/chescaleigh, respectively), and Franchesca on her website, http://franchesca.net/category/blog/. Ramsey currently has a combined 178,961 subscribers between her two YouTube pages. She features videos about “lock” (or dreadlock) maintenance and styles, graphic design, and social issues, such as “slut shaming” and Obamacare. She became famous for her video “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylPUzxpIBe0), which spawned a series of reaction videos. Her videos discuss numerous social issues while including humor and parodies. I make an effort to watch her videos and read her blog because I feel that she has a grasp on the issues she covers. The Internet features several other blogs like this one, but some blogs are not as light-hearted.

I have found that since the 9/11 attack, and the subsequent “War on Terror,” and because of the increased popularity of social media, such as YouTube, Facebook, Blogger, and WordPress, users have found a means to discuss social, political, and economical issues that are not reported in detail in traditional media. Take for instance the numerous videos on YouTube that are available for our viewing. If you type in “Boston Marathon bombing,” YouTube pulls up 1,130,000 videos, many of them being actual footage from the bombing. When I watched the news the day of the incident and saw how much raw footage was included in the news report, I was amazed. In the midst of such tragedy, people found the time to pull out their cell phones and record what was happening around them then send it to news stations. Had it not been for this footage, America and the world would not have been able to see and what it felt like, to an extent, to be in the shoes of the runners, families, and spectators there at the finish line. Without this footage, we would not have gotten so detailed a story as we did, because the media there at the event would have only been able to provide only a limited perspective of what happened.

Web and video blogs also give people the “guts” to say what they mean, and when they find there are others who agree with them, they continue to produce stories that their audiences want to read. After I searched for videos about the Boston Marathon bombing, I typed in “Trayvon Martin” and got 2,760,000 results. As I was scrolling through the results list, I came across a video titled “Trayvon Martin Body After Being Shot Dead By Zimmerman & The Last Moments Of His Life!” that was uploaded by a user named “TNN Raw Uncut.” He also included his Twitter name @tjsotomayor in the video. I was caught off guard when I saw this title as I am sure anyone else would be. I clicked on the link to see just what the user had to say, and he stated in his introduction that viewers would get “nothing but news, raw and uncut, with no filters or script.” I did not watch the video beyond the initial introduction and his lead-in to the subject matter because of what the title said. After thinking about the discussion on citizen journalism we had in class, I could not help but think that his video and several others on this subject and other controversial topics take information to the extreme to get viewers. TNN Raw Uncut has 63,405 subscribers, and his video was viewed 803,756 at the time of this blog post. Is commentary like this what people want, the extreme version of news that traditional media cannot and will not report?

Blogs promote citizen journalism by allowing users the freedom to write what they feel and know from a humanistic point of view. Where traditional journalism allows for unbiased news reports, citizen journalism gives users the leeway to write what the people really want to read, hear, and see. I have often found how different news stations report stories from different the news reports on an issue from different slants, and depending on how the story is reported, several key points are left out, often leaving a biased report. Granted, citizen journalism is subject to a high level of bias, but if affords the opportunity for non-professional writers to fill in the holes left behind in traditional news reports.

Because citizen journalism gives people the information that they want the way they want it, people are more inclined to trust it. As a result, bloggers are more inclined to continue to report on issues that they feel their audiences want to know more about, including government conspiracies, the fate of the economy, and civil injustices. Moreover, because of the lack of restraint that blogs have in comparison with traditional news outlets, which are imposed with so many rules, bloggers can offer their stance on an issue and get as detailed in their reports as they want. This independence from professional restrain raises issues of credibility, professionalism, and ethics. As purveyors of “news,” citizen journalists, especially those with a large following, remember that they have readers who will believe anything they read. They also must remember that with their popularity and their large readerships, the information they disseminate can “go viral,” leading to great benefits or dire consequences for the blogger and for the news source.

References

Antony, Mary Grace & Ryan J. Thomas. (2010). “‘This is citizen journalism at its finest’: YouTube and the public sphere in the Oscar Grant shooting incident.” News Media Society, 12(8): 1280-1296. doi: 10.1177/1461444810362492

TNN Raw Uncut. (2013, July 13). “Trayvon Martin Body After Being Shot Dead By Zimmmerman & The Last Moments Of His Life!” [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT25vOWgsfQ

Dual Transformations: Mobile Technology and Our Society

Have you ever seen an older movie in which one of the characters is using a cellular phone with an enormous battery pack hanging from a bag on their hip or back? Technology has advanced so much since then. We came a long way from those bulky and cumbersome mobile phones as we progressed over the decades. The early 1990s saw trimmed down models of cell phones that no longer required the huge battery packs or the cords unless attached to a car. The late 1990s and the early 2000s saw the mobile phone take on a smaller design, and included games such as Snake (Amazon Research & Conservation Center, 2013, “Mobile Gaming”). Today’s smartphones have numerous features that many consumers desire, such as GPS capability, streaming video, various apps, and digital music players. The also operate at lightning speeds in comparisons to earlier versions. In addition, cell phones now can weigh mere ounces and are ultra-sleek in design. Who would have thought that mobile phone technology would advance to the lengths that it has today?

As I type this post, I think about how our society has also evolved along with the mobile phone. When the first mobile phone call was made on June 17, 1946, society changed as we knew it (AT&T, 2013, “1946”). Businesses were able to stay connected with their customers (AT&T, 2013, “1946”). As the technology in cell phones grew more advanced, society grew more eager to have the latest version. With each new development in mobile phone technology, with each addition to the basic design of the mobile phone, people began to change. They began to see themselves in from on the small screens of their phones more than interacting with the rest of society on a personal level. Mobile phone technology allowed people to maintain valuable connections with the rest of the world without actually having to interact with others personally through text messages, e-mails, and voice calls. We could be in the “here and now” wherever we were without actually being there physically. With this ultimate advantage, cell phones became a staple in every person’s repertoire of items to take with them when going anywhere.

In her TED Talk video titled “The Anthropology of Mobile Phones,” which was posted in October 2007, Jan Chipchase makes a great point concerning mobile phones. She said that “if [we] ask people what the three most important things that they carry are—across cultures and across gender and across contexts—most people will say keys, money, and if they own one, a mobile phone” (Chipchase, 2010, “The Anthropology”). What she said is so true for millions of people around the world. Just today, all I carried out of the door when I went to the gym was my keys, my credit card, and my cell phone. For many people, these items are the essential tools they need to carry on a productive day. Cell phones are essential to our daily lives, and we will quickly become frazzled and out of sorts if we misplace our smartphones or someone steals them. I add my weekly appointments for me and my family on my Google calendar, which automatically updates my calendar on my phone, I conduct most of my banking and bill paying on my phone through my banks’ and utility companies’ apps, and I search for information for research assignments and just for everyday use through the Google search feature. I never pictured myself becoming one of the masses who is glued to a phone or any other mobile device, but I think it was inevitable that I would.

The cracked screen on my HTC Vivid.
It definitely was a challenge having to work around all of these cracks!

I remember when my parents got their first cell phones. At the time, my siblings and I were intrigued with them, despite their simple design and functions. We had experienced desktop computers, but having cell phones in the house meant that we were “moving up” in a sense. A few years later when I turned seventeen, I got my first cell phone, a Nokia 6610. When I figured out how to send text messages and download music, I believe it was then that I became hooked into mobile technology. Each of my mobile phones after that one was better than the one before it. Currently, I own an HTC One, which I purchased to replace the second HTC Vivid I broke the screen on. As soon as I bought my One, I transferred “my life” from the Vivid to it so that I would not miss a step in my daily routine. I have even added the same apps and settings to my Barnes and Noble NOOK, which I also carry with me. I hate to admit it, but I have fallen victim to mobile technology consumerism, and I believe that I will only become more engrossed in technology as it quickly transforms to meet the growing needs of our society.

Mobile technology developers are not slow to the desires of our consumerist society. They see our demand for the next best thing and they work hard to fulfill our “need” for new and attractive technology. Andreas M. Kaplan wrote in his article, “If you love something, let it go mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile social media 4x4,” which was published in Business Horizons in 2012, that our society has fallen into a state of “impulsiveness” (Kaplan, 2012, p. 132). He explains this impulsiveness with “impulsiveness theory, which states that people constantly struggle between displaying long-term control and giving into short-term temptations” (Kaplan, 2012, p. 132). Many of these companies see our vulnerabilities when it comes to mobile technology and cater to these weaknesses by providing us with the features and apps we need to conduct the business of our lives with ease.

With the rapid rise in availability of mobile technology, it is easy to see how these companies make a profit off us consumers. This supply and demand cycle that we have created leads me to wonder and ask these questions: have we allowed mobile technology to become too integrated in our lives? Have we given over too much power over our lives to companies and developers, who push these products in our faces on a daily basis? Have we become so lazy that we would rather have things the easy way all the time instead of having to put in any effort?

Some people criticize the way our society has come to depend on mobile technology, lamenting our abdication from, and the slow demise of, traditional platforms like television and radio. Henry Blodget, author of “‘Mobile First’ Is a Dumb Strategy,” which was published on December 22, 2012, wrote that “as long as there are offices and desks, it seems highly unlikely that big screens, keyboards, and touchpads/mice are going to become an afterthought.” Despite this fact, mobile technology will only continue to be an integral part of our lives. As strategic communicators, we are responsible for being ready to handle the newest forms of mobile technology that come along in order to serve our audiences appropriately.

References

Amazon Research & Conservation Center. (2013). “Mobile gaming.” Amazon Research & Conservation Center. Retrieved from http://amazoncenter.org/arcc/downloads/online-gaming/

AT&T. (2013). “1946: First mobile telephone call.” AT&T Intellectual Property. Retrieved from http://www.corp.att.com/attlabs/reputation/timeline/46mobile.html

Blodget, Henry. (2012, December 22). “‘Mobile first” is a dumb strategy.” Business Insider, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/survey-mobile-first-bad-strategy-2012-12

Chipchase, Jan. (2007, October). “The anthropology of mobile technology.” TED Talks. Podcast retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jan_chipchase_on_our_mobile_phones.html

Kaplan, Andreas M. (2012). “If you love something, let it go mobile” Mobile marketing and mobile social media 4X4. Business Horizons, 55, 129-139. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2011.10.009