Technology, Media & Culture: The Impact on Communications

  The Influences of Media Consumption on Student Identities   Do you remember being popular or a wallflower in middle and high school? How much did your access to technology affect this evaluation of your social life? I remember being overly grateful to my God sister for passing down her old Apple  iPhone 3G to me when we were in high school because her parents bought her the next model for Christmas that year. Until then I had only been allowed to use a Nokia “brick” cell phone , as I referred to it back then. That’s when my obsession with Apple products started. “Why?” you ask. Because back then, having an iPhone meant an increase in social status and popularity.   Today the ongoing debate still exists, but now the technological contenders are Android phone models and, still, the Apple iPhone. And if you happen to come across someone who doesn’t have either type of model, it’s likely that they will be in for uninvited criticism by anyone who notices. But what makes access to technol

  3 Ways to Promote Organizational Shift from Adversarial to Dialogic Strategy in Digital Communications   Organizational communications strategy is often characterized by control – an organization’s ability to control the narrative of how the audience views a company, its people, its products or services, its community, its brands. But recently, with the marketing power that social media has facilitated for organizations and businesses, a need for a different approach and way of thinking has become a new requirement to engage internal and external audiences while increasing and maintaining stakeholder support. This new strategy is called dialogic communications.   Social interaction is seen by organizations as a cultural phenomenon, as if to say, we – the organization – already know what you want, to the consumer audience. This is because there is a lack of academic knowledge on how engagement on social media jump started a change in the future of corporate communications by phasing o

  Science Fiction's Predictions for the Future Can you imagine a society that contains a mixture of humans and cyborgs disguised as humans functioning together? Well, that’s what James Cameron’s The Terminator predicts for us in a short 9 years, 2029. If you’ve seen the movie franchise, you know Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character travels from 2029 back to 1984. Needless to say, Cameron had big dreams for technological advancements in the 21 st century. Science fiction movies with ideas about technological advancements are not so uncommon. According to Aikat (2014), “science fiction has inspired visions of future media developments” for years and has “enabled us to transform technologies and tools” that we use in current everyday life. We haven’t yet advanced to a time of flying cars , but according to Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element , that won’t happen until around the year 2263, so we (the human race) have about 243 years to figure out the technology and make it happen.   Movies

Red Bull & Dunkin' Top Social Media Strategists of 2020 Top social media strategists know that their content is constantly being viewed and shared by their audiences. This means the strategies need to include fresh stories and engaging visuals that make the audience want to keep talking. Red Bull takes advantage of using social media for the extra marketing push in just the right way. Let's take a look at Red Bull's 2020 Batalla De Los Gallos event.                                                                                               Red Bull   The company hosts an international rap battle event and when you find the event in various search engines , you can see that Red Bull reaches global audiences by hosting the event in various countries, as well as considering the task of speaking to those audiences with the availability of content in various languages, Spanish and English. The Red Bull marketing team is obviously aware of the popularity of the event, which

The Evolution of News Media Reporting Strategies Remember when your parents used to buy the newspaper daily to read or listen to the radio to listen to the headlines on current events? Or better yet, remember when you used to watch TV every night between 9:00 - 11:00 PM to catch the news broadcast for an update of all the exciting things that happened during the day?  These days, journalists still spend the day collecting the news and packaging it into articles or radio and TV news shows for the public to consume, but the job doesn't stop there anymore. News media outlets have expanded their reach to social media, and as convenient as it is to offer the world short and easily-accessed headlines, old school journalists and newbies to the field need additional training based on all that is required to keep up with the evolution of news media reporting strategies.  Once news packages are created, they have to be repurposed for social media. Take Atlanta's WSB-TV journalist, Kriste

  Social Media Strategies that Promote Growth  within the Communications Profession Social media is at the top of the list when it comes to reaching audiences, whether it is for news media distribution or B2C marketing purposes. Modern-day communication has evolved from simply selling, whether it is the breaking story of a media package or a product or service that a company has to offer consumers. To be an effective communicator today really takes the diverse skill set of mastering various audience connection strategies by way of social media to achieve the desired outcome. It's no surprise that people spend about 30% of their time on social media , so how can businesses use this to their advantage? A few simple strategies for social media management integrated into regular communications ... Speak the audience's language The audience has control. That's rule #1 when considering how social media can be a useful tool. But it's necessary to address them in just the right