Media Technologies of Today

MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES

It is my goal to assess media technologies or categories of media technologies and determine why certain medias are successful and how they’ve evolved throughout time. The media categories I would like to review are billboards, social media, print media, and audible media.

Billboards have had a wave of growth and loss since their induction. According to Taylor, “Recent years have seen growth in outdoor advertising revenues. According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, annual revenues were $2.8 billion in 1993; over the following 10 years, expenditures almost doubled, increasing to $5.5 billion in 2003. This rise has occurred in spire of the loss of cigarette advertising on billboards due to the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 and a decline in the relative proportion of billboards for alcoholic beverages (OAAA 2004). In recent years, a broader range of product categories has been advertised on billboards, led by a variety of retail and service businesses. Zenish Optimedia classifies outdoor advertising as a “major medium,” along with television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and cinema.” (Taylor, 2006)

The growth in billboards is no surprise, as consumers see billboard advertisements on a regular basis – in mass amounts. When I moved back from Europe to Las Vegas, my brain went through consumer shock. It was difficult to process each advertisement individually and I saw it as a mass of consumerism.

“Unlike the reasons for using billboards, it is notable that the success factors are generally consistent across companies. Regardless of the company size and type and degree of billboard usage, which influence the reasons for using billboards, companies have common perceptions of appropriate billboard characteristics. Experience presumably teaches businesses what works and what does not work with billboards. Because heavy and light users have similar perceptions, even limited experience appears to be sufficient to shape companies perceptions. Advertising agencies and outdoor-advertising firms may also play a role by communicating the importance of success factors to their clients.” (Taylor, 2006)

According to Katona in an article examining social media as a communication factor not entirely as a marketing scheme, “Social media is defined as the way in which people interact to create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and netowrks. Social media is different from traditional/industrial media and advertising in many ways such as immediacy, permanence, cost, quality, frequency, and reach. By 2013, many well-known social media platforms existed such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram, and more. The total time spent on social media in the U.S. on PC and mobile devices increased 37 percent from 2011 to 2012, and Nielsen forecasted that Internet users will continue to spend more time with the social media sites than another other sites.” (Katona, 2014) Social media seems to be a great tool for business to consumer relations as well as communication between friends, but it as also caused some changes in the way people interact with each other.

The next is print media. Print media used to be the primary form of retrieving new information. It also is the oldest form of media. However, it is beginning to struggle intensely. According to Biddle, “The once very profitable print media businesses are in trouble. Many factors are involved but the core issues is that largely, the barriers to entry no longer existed. As Senator John Kerry said ‘news delivery is in an age where everything you read in ink can be found on the web faster and cheaper and further from where it was printed’. The new competition does not need expensive equipment, skilled staff and interactive physical distribution systems. There is no shortage of writers for digital media and many provide material at little or no cost. Both classified and display advertisers that used to subsidize the news gathering, printing and distribution costs have greatly reduced their reliance on newspapers.” (Biddle, 2014)

The last, audible media, contains things like radio, podcasts, and books on tape. According to an article written about podcasts, “It remains a niche phenomenon forever waiting for its breakthrough moment. According to a recent Edison Research study, only about 1.7 of all audio media listened to in the US comes from a podcast source, compared to a 52.1% from radio. That number may seem microscopic, but consider that the massively popular streaming services like Pandor only net 11.6% of our “share of ear.” Edison finds that about 5% of Americans on any given day (or about 12 million) listen to a podcast. But because many podcasts are released weekly, the more revealing metric is monthly listening; which triples the daily percentage to 15% or 39 million Americans regularly tuning in to time-shifted audio.” (Podcasting, 2014)

It seems that there are several different types of media and the number of different types just keeps expanding. Billboard, audible, social, and print media all have major growth since their inception, however not all will succeed in the future. Print media is the primary one that seems to be struggling at the moment, but it will likely last forever with its roots.

References

Biddle, I. (2014). The Print Media Industry: A Model Under Change. Busidate, 22(2), 2-4. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=448fdb5b-8576-4b4f-9f14-608c4fdd9adf%40sessionmgr4002&vid=8&hid=4205

Katona, Z., & Sarvary, M. (2014). Maersk Line: B2B SOCIAL MEDIA--"IT'S COMMUNICATION, NOT MARKETING". Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=448fdb5b-8576-4b4f-9f14-608c4fdd9adf%40sessionmgr4002&vid=5&hid=4205

Podcasting: Who's Listening? And What Is It Worth To You?. (2014). Media Industry Newsletter, (40), 7. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/detail/detail?sid=448fdb5b-8576-4b4f-9f14-608c4fdd9adf%40sessionmgr4002&vid=12&hid=4205&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=b9h&AN=99046313

Taylor, C. R., Franke, G. R., & Hae-Kyong, B. (2006). USE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF BILLBOARDS. Journal Of Advertising, 35(4), 21-34. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=448fdb5b-8576-4b4f-9f14-608c4fdd9adf%40sessionmgr4002&vid=2&hid=4205