Advertising plays a major role in helping communication technology develop. It helps people become more familiarized with communication technologies. Communication technologies rely on advertising to inform consumers about the product; how to use it and why they should want one. These consumers who are being targeted are called configured users. To teach the configured user, advertising helps to focus on what type of consumer people might be. A consumer could be either very unfamiliar with the technology, familiar with the technology, or very familiar to it. Advertising is used to advance a communication technology's popularity. Advertising really shows the evolution a communication technology goes through. Take these two cell phone commercials. The first commercial is an advertisement for when cell phones first came out. At this time, most people are uncertain about the product. Only a select few people owned one. This group is called innovators. They are the people who take the first risks and try new technologies before everyone else. This early commercial tries to emphasize the importance of cell phones and how they can be helpful in cars or anytime you are alone in hopes the majority will adopt the technology. Advertisements in this phase are trying to explain to the consumers what the communication technology is so consumers become comfortable and familiar with the product. In the second commercial, the majority has adopted the communication technology, and the advertisement is targeting the laggards. This group only accepts a technology once it has become traditional. For this group, advertisers no longer have to worry about explaining what the technology is, but instead they are trying to popularize and glamorize cell phones. When a technology starts to become popular, new additions and improvements are made to it. These new additions still need to be advertised in order to keep the technology advancing. Without the help of advertisers, communication technologies may never become popular and therefore die out.
March 2008 Archives
FREQUENT UPDATES: Pick either an acquaintance you don't know that well or a parent. In a 24 hour period dramatically increase the amount of information you send this person using a text-based mobile communication technology that you know they can receive (likeIM on your phone, text/SMS, or e-mail on your phone/PDA). For example, you could communicate with them every time you do anything ("hi I am getting on the bus", "arrived in class," "class is boring," "having lunch," "talking with friend.")
I texted someone very frequently for the past day. During this 24 hour span I texted him things such as "eating a salad for dinner" and "going to sleep now". His reaction to these text messages was very interesting. I imagine he was confused as to why I was talking to him so much. I do not talk to him often, and to not only talk to him a lot in one day, but through texts, I'm sure was puzzling for him. I imagined this person did not know how to respond to my text messages. At first, this person responded with a bit of hesitation. It seemed as if he liked that I was making an effort to talk to him, even if it was out of the ordinary. With some of my earlier texts, he did not write back normally. The early texts were responded to with "ok" or "that's weird". Once the day went on, and this person got more accustomed to talking to me, his responses became less hesitant. Once he said, "oh how fun" when I texted him that I was taking notes in class. This text expressed thought in the fact that he used sarcasm. He was getting used to my frequent texts and starting to play along. When I texted him what I was eating for each meal, he responded with "that sounds tasty". I think this exercise exhibits the norms we associate with texting. We associate texting as something good friends do. You do not text some one who you have not spoken to or seen in awhile, especially if the text is about something insignificant information that they probably do not care about . Also, currently, the norm for texts are right now is that they are supposed to be for fast questions or quick sayings. It is not supposed to be used as a form of communication to tell someone about your life every five minutes.
Texting is a relatively new communication technology. Therefore, norms need to be created for it. I think these norms come from the media and society. We see a lot of commercials for texting and new phones that offer it. There has been a whole language created based on texting. Abbreviations and spelling words phonetically has become the appropriate way to talk when communicating. This also supports the fact that texting is supposed to be used for short, fast communications. I broke this norm when I texted this person frequently through out the day. My texts were meaningless and unimportant. The expected behavior of texts is that you use them to communicate with people when you can not speak on the phone and need to tell them something right then. I know I would be taken a back if someone texted me frequently during the day with useless information. I expect texts to be fast and of great importance, because that is the learned expectation of how our society is supposed to use text messages.
