Journal
Exercise
Paper/Discussion Ideas
Suggested Reading |
"At the end of each chapter, [Bugeja] lists
journal exercises
and discussion ideas for those who feel inspired to examine their media
habits. You could do a lot worse with your spare time (and probably
will). A few examples of these exercises: Take an inventory of your
media appliances and technology devices; decide which ones have real
utility and which take more time than they are worth. Assemble a
marketing profile of yourself, then ask what important elements about
you are left out (a sobering project). ..."
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Journal
Exercise
Computer-assisted
marketing collects data on individuals to build “customer profiles.”
Marketers
match people of similar profile and target them in applications,
promoting
products or services. To assemble profiles specific data must be
collected,
including:
- Demographics,
or
personal facts as found in a census survey: sex, age, race, marital
status,
annual income, vehicles, education, citizenship, disabilities,
housing—physical
and financial characteristics.
- Psychographics,
or
lifestyle facts as found in credit and credit card reports identifying
debt,
brand-name purchases, and other financial/consumer information;
magazine
subscriptions; television viewing habits; and product warranties.
-
Attitudes,
or
reasons for lifestyles choices or consumer-spending habits, including
why a
person chose one brand over another; how the person views the product;
why the
person subscribes to certain magazines or consumes TV programming; goes
on
diets, exercises, or uses beauty products, etc.
It is one thing
to say a consumer is a
26-year-old college-educated man renting a two-bedroom dwelling in Washington,
D.C. It is
another to say he is a 26-year-old business school graduate of Hampton
University with
$22,000 debt from student loans renting a $2,000-per-month townhouse in
Georgetown. It is
another to say that he is active in his alumni association because he
values
his Hampton
education; aspires to own his own accounting firm because wealth
bestows
status; and donates time in a nearby homeless shelter because
volunteering
enhances leadership skills.
A consumer
profile detailing personal
facts, lifestyle choices and attitudes—illustrated above—is usually
more
extensive. Does such a profile actually define or stereotype that
person? Does
it violate privacy when data like this is collected online and sold to
companies or other interested parties?
To answer such
questions, assemble a
consumer profile about your personal, lifestyle, and attitudinal
traits.
Provide answers concerning:
1.
Your
sex, age, race, marital status, income, vehicles, education,
citizenship,
disabilities, and living quarters—including how many and what type of
rooms,
whether you rent or own the dwelling or live with others, how much you
pay in
monthly rent or mortgage, and so on.
2.
Your
existing loans or debt; your bank accounts or stock and other
investments; six
months of credit card purchases, noting brand-names; magazine
subscriptions;
and merchandise containing product warranties.
3.
Why
you
made each lifestyle choice enumerated in #2 above, chose one brand over
another; subscribed to each magazine; and anything else that explains
your
attitudes.
After you
assemble your marketing profile,
ask yourself:
- Does
the profile actually define or
stereotype me?
- What
other attributes about my character
are omitted that define me as an individual?
-
How would I feel, with respect
to privacy,
about others having access to my profile and/or about companies that
collect
and sell such data?
- Discuss central theses and themes on marketing, privacy,
and social consequences of computerization from suggested readings
above.
- Discuss observations from the journal exercise above.
- Discuss the validity of these assertions:
- Many people have lost perception because of
conflicting depictions and stereotypes about identity, including:
- The
cheapening
of personhood because of military threats.
- The
generalization of personhood because of computer-assisted marketing.
- The
over-glorification of personhood because of media and technology.
- Virtual habitat intrudes on real habitat, especially
with respect to health care, education, and crime.
- Computer-assisted marketing involves sensitive issues
of privacy in an Internet age, especially concerning children.
- Dennis, Everette E. and Merrill, John C.
Media Debates: Great Issues for the Digital Age. Belmont,
Calif.: Wadsworth,
2002.
- Lindstrom, Martin. Clicks, Bricks & Brands. London:
Kogan Page, 2001.
- Rochlin, Gene I. Trapped in the Net:
The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization. Princeton,
N.J.: Univ.
of Princeton Press, 1997.
- Roszak, Theodore, The Cult of Information. Berkeley,
Calif.: University
of California Press, 1994.
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