Essay on Tech Revolutionizing Businesses: Adapting to Customer Needs

Introduction

Technology has significantly changed the way businesses conduct their operations. People’s way of life, interests, and entertainment activities all revolve around modern technology. The proliferation of the internet has also transformed how major processes like marketing gets delivered to the end customer. It is now common to find businesses responding to customer needs – instead of the customers buying what the market offers to them. One of the sectors of the economy that has firmly become impacted by the internet is the mass media. Nowadays, people can access news anywhere using their mobile digital devices. This paper summarizes Professor Jarvis’s essay on journalism, death to the Mass, which posted in 2016 (Jarvis). Consequently, the paper analyses facts as they compared to the piece, Death to the Mass.

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SUMMARY OF JARVIS’S MAIN POINTS

Jarvis argues that contrary to what many people think, content and distribution in the mass media are not the kings. He notes that relationships are the ones that have transformed tech companies like Facebook and Google in fortune 500 companies. These two tech giants use data to create relevance that suits each individual in their way. On the contrary, the mass media assumes all the customers are the same and want the same thing, leading to the death of the mass-media business model (Jarvis). As a result, many of the publishing departments will severely suffer the impact of coming to the end of mass media.

Mass media needs to create relationships with the people by ensuring their news is a service that creates relevance and value. That would include the mass media going to a particular group of people to create relevant content that solves each person’s problems. Such most can only become possible with the use of digital platforms. Some of the most relevant skills needed for this kind of journalism include listening, observational and empathy skills. Hence the business model would serve communities, interests, and cases of every viewer. This model creates profit by having people donate to them and by creating a platform where specific people subscribe to their services (Jarvis). The model can only work if media companies create a partnership with companies like Google and Facebook since they have relevant and detailed data about people.

EXPLAIN WHAT ASPECTS OF HIS ANALYSIS YOU DO AND DO NOT AGREE WITH AND, WHY?

The above analysis is a true reflection of the current world in which we live. Most of the content on the internet revolves around the interaction and relationships amongst people. Nowadays, an occurrence of an event gets shared globally within split seconds. The sharing becomes driven by the relationships created between people on a particular platform such as Twitter. Statistics show that most people view social media as a part of their daily lives, which fosters relationships and interactions (Alalwan et al., 4). The connections have made many companies consider social media as an integral part of their marketing strategy. Therefore, there is a need for mass media to adopt platforms such as social media to create interaction and relationships with their customers.

Furthermore, it is also true from Jarvis’s essay that the current news treats people as masses, and everybody wants the same thing. The reality of the matter is that, even with the same information, the audience on social media often tweak it to suit them. The focus has shifted from information and products to relationships among people. Li et al. note that social media platforms have given athletes a chance to share a piece of personalized details contrary to traditional journalism reports (4). Also, current research shows that a lot of people are not spending more time on social media while interacting with each other (Apple et al.) The study affirms Jarvis’s argument that people are no longer going to mass media; instead, the content is moving to people. The time people spend on social media has forced advertising agents to use this platform as a means of marketing.

In as much as the internet is now building new products and services around communities, it will never kill journalism. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram enable non-professional journalists to share information with other people. In such scenarios, there are rising cases of people sharing fake news on these platforms. However, companies like Facebook usually deny liability for the fake news, arguing that they only provide a platform for sharing. Thus, many people still rely on traditional mass media producers for authentic and verifiable information (Valkonen 7). It is, therefore, erroneous to conclude that the mass media will eventually become dead.

CONCLUSION

The internet and technology transformation has revolutionized the way people get access to information. The audience now has access to information in an interactive manner that creates more value and relevance. Platforms such as Facebook and Google have collected a lot of data about their users which enable them to develop relationships with their client. It is now common to find advertising agencies using social media as a means of marketing rather than using traditional mass media. Therefore, the mass media needs to embrace digital technology to create relationships with its clients. Otherwise, the mass media will end up losing its relevance. The mass media can find out what people’s problems are and then create information that is relevant and has value to the viewers. This form of reporting requires skills such as listening and empathizing abilities, among others. Contrary to what people believe, the mass media remains an authentic and trusted source of information; hence it cannot die. Therefore, the mass media must engage more on platforms like Facebook to root out fake news.

Works Cited

Alalwan, Ali Abdallah, et al. “Social media in marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature.” Telematics and Informatics, vol. 34, no.7,2017, p. 1177-1190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.05.008

Apple, Gil, et al. “The future of social media in marketing.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science vol 48, no.1, 2020, p. 79-95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1

Jarvis, Jeff. “Death to the Mass.” Medium, Whither News? 2016, medium.com/whither-news/death-to-the-mass-eb33c08dc3b6.

Li, Bo, et al. “For better or for worse: The impact of social media on Chinese sports journalists.” Communication & Sport vol.5, no.3, 2017, p.311-330. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479515617279

Valkonen, Tiia. “# instajournalism: The Boundaries of Journalism in the Age of Social Media Influencing.” Hakuojeet, 2019. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019100319487