Our textbook, Citizen Marketers, discusses the idea of democratization. The authors describe this as the work incessantly against the forces of control. The first story they discuss describes how this concept forces companies to become more transparent even against their will. One example they use is the story about Wrigley Field’s crumble.
In summary potentially injurious chunks of concrete crumbled to the seats below. The Cubs made repairs without telling anyone even the Chicago Tribune. Although this scene tried to remain out of the public eye, web sites, blogs, and other competing media created its own buzz. Because of all the hype from other forms of media and word of mouth, it became apparent that the problem needed to be acknowledged.
This describes just how the media world can quickly spread and gain attention to any particular event or story. Because of the technologies that we have now, people are able to create these online communities because of its accessibility. These forms of media also demonstrate how fan sites can start and eventually start to contribute to the teams. Whether the site’s blogs bash the team’s effort in the last game or praise them for their victory, the publicity and buzz it causes creates more attention.
Overall, by waiting to acknowledge the issue, the Cubs began a waterfall effect that ended with greater newsworthiness. The information hold illustrates the information control.
2 comments:
Not only does this story describe just how the media world can quickly spread and gain attention, but it also suggests that many top officials and executives have yet to realize that "control is slipping out of control" (McConnell and Huba 56). In this story, the Cubs falsely believed that they could control every aspect of this issue, they were wrong, they were very wrong. Companies, communities, and the government need the acknowledge that there is a new model of operation. No longer is it a top-to-bottom model of operation; it is a bottom-to-top model of operation. Not surprisingly, the ability to embrace this new phenomena is crucial to the success and ,ultimately, the survival of any organization.
No surprise here for me. Baseball is a PR disaster. While saying that,I hope they hire me later. I knew of the story because I follow baseball and then the text refreshed my memory. My hope with this new technology in which spreading news fast can be done by anyone at anytime, is that baseball cleans itself up on its own rather than cleaning up messes ex post facto. I also hope that all businesses operate ethically at all times in fear of some whistle blowing blogger will call them out on what ever it is they are doing.
Post a Comment