There have been many changes over the past few years in regards to the worlds of PR and Marketing. The game change is a direct result of new media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. While these outlets have helped create the new rules of public relations and marketing, it has also affected interpersonal communication in a huge way. The direct communication between people, or companies and there consumers have now been digitalized. The major question, however, is if we should be so accepting of all of these new changes so fast. In the long run will these changes help us, this is the question we should be asking ourselves.
Social media has changed the way in which society publishes and consumes the news. These days, with a click of a button, you can have the news of your choice readily accessible at the palm of your hand. While these new technologies help keep us updated in the fast paced lives that we live, it can also be something that misconstrues our judgments on issues. Social media isn’t always a reliable source of news because the legitimacy of the person who wrote a post that you are reading may not always be so clear. What’s to say that a man that doesn’t know much about an issue is sitting on his couch writing this post for the world that isn’t even accurate; sometimes there is no way of telling.
In the book, “The New Rules of Marketing & PR,” David Meerman Scott tells his readers about the most recent changes in PR and Marketing and discusses how much both of these fields have changed. He talks about how to integrate the new rules in with the old. He stresses that these changes are good, in moderation, and can really help the communication between consumers if used the right way. It helps many more people becomes publishers and gives journalists an opportunity to go looking for stories that they actually want to write about, rather than waiting for the right one to fall onto their plates. However, not everyone enjoys and embraces these changes as much as Scott.
Nicholas Krsitof takes a different approach to this topic for an article he wrote for the New York Times. He isn’t as eager for these changes to take place as many others. His problem with the social media age taking over and in place of newspapers is the selectiveness that it creates in what news you read and what you gain from it. If you only search a certain type of news, that’s all you’re going to receive and read about. It becomes a never ending cycle. It doesn’t broaden peoples thoughts or help them form sound opinions.
My opinion on the wave of new media remains the same after reading all these different authors opinions on it. Although I do agree that this is a scary process and not everything is happening how some of us may have wanted, new media is exactly that, new. It is still growing and changing everyday. If we give it a chance and all learn and grow with it, it will even better benefit the PR and Marketing world in years to come.
