LO2: Be able to correlate the evolution of new media organisational cultures and roles which have impacted the product proposal.
Due to the growth of social media, globalisation as an idea has developed and come into the world. Globalisation refers to how a media product always holds ideologies coming from the culture it was made in, with media products now being able to be produced, distributed, and consumed across a global scale, these ideologies will be spread along with the media product. Before this new technology changed the marketplace, media organisations were limited in terms of their target audience as they could only create the media products which their country wanted to see.
Now, with the use of the web and social media, media organisations are able to create any media product they want, whether it be mainstream or niche, as they can now reach a much wider, larger audience. Due to anyone and everyone now being able to have infinite access to any media products, each separate media sector and industry have been forced to evolve and diversify their created content. Some examples of this are how in the film and tv industry, more physically different actors such as different races, ages, genders, body shapes, have to be hired to be in popular products not just as side characters but also as main characters to represent their newly enlarged target audience otherwise they may face scrutiny.
In my industry specifically, it has become marginally easier for people to become prosumers as anyone could learn how to code and run an app to then be put on the app store for millions of people to download and use. This means that a lot more ideologies have been exposed to the mass public as more niche and unheard-of practices could be advertised within their apps. For my proposed product specifically, it makes the idea surrounding my app a lot easier as society has already become more used to the idea of speaking about mental health and self-care. Years ago before this, one when mental health wasn't properly researched or well-known within society and held a bad stigma and two apps were still only thought of as games to waste time on and not productive, useful tools to advance your life, my proposed app wouldn't have been possible or even successful.
In my media sector of mobile apps, a lot of media conglomerates have had to evolve to consistently meet the changes from converging media. It has been heavily influenced since the creation of social media, which always remains as the most popular apps in the store with the occasional trending app reaching the top ranks. The previously named media conglomerate of Facebook was forced to evolve to meet the challenges from a converging media market and as such have rebranded and are now named Meta. Meta is now the name of the conglomerate who owns the subsidiaries of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. They made a new logo in order to market themselves out to their target audience with the aim that the new Meta logo becomes so recognisable that people know the company behind each social media app or website. This can be seen when logging into each app or creating a new account. The development of these apps shows just how much that this media sector has been forced to adapt to fully use the potential from the new opportunities that this technology has brought.
For example, the social media apps Instagram and Snapchat prove that apps do utilise the new features and developments that keep coming within each new model of a new phone. Specifically, on Snapchat, the Snapmaps feature where you can see the location of the people you have friended, only with their permission, however, relies on the mobile phone to have a GPS and location data through signal and connection to local wires. Furthermore, the camera feature on Instagram allows access to both front and back cameras of the mobile phone and allows the users to toggle and choose whether they want the front or back in use. For most social media apps nowadays after creating your profile, the app asks if you would like to befriend some people you already know. This would be generated either through the app's connection with your mobile phone's contact list or who your other friends are friended with.
Some of the many job roles which would be required to create my proposed product would include:
- Graphic Designer
- Software Engineer (ioS and Android)
- Content Editor
The role of a graphic designer would be required to create my app as they would be responsible for making the app look appealing. Even though some of the appearances of the app will be customisable so the user can have some choice in their app to make them most comfortable a graphic designer would still be needed. Firstly, this would be for the app's logo design to ensure it is targeting all of the audience and that it widely represents the ideologies and goals of the app. Moving on, the graphic designer would still need to create an appropriate layout style including the fonts being used, some of the images being used and other relatable choices that would be made by them. This is a traditional job role as a graphic designer has been a job before the creation of social media, it is just that now it is a more securable career option as they would be required in higher demand than in the past when they would design posters or newspapers to be printed.
A software engineer would be required to make the actual app. This would include creating all the necessary pieces of code to ensure the app runs smoothly across all media platforms. Specifically, you would need more than one software engineer or highly skilled and experienced personnel as apps run differently depending on the media format. For example, an app on an iOS device cannot always run on an Android device, which is why not all apps are available on both stores. To create the app, you would need software engineers who are knowledgeable in both areas to make certain that the app is available on both media devices. This would create and reach a much larger and wider target audience who will be able to use the app, therefore making the app more successful. This job role is not as traditional but is still a newer and high in demand career to be in going into the future. Being a software engineer exists before social media but wasn't necessarily for apps and could have worked in the TV industry.
Being a content editor is a very new career role that definitely emerged more after the creation of social media. It is not a traditional job role to fulfill and many people might not even know it exists. The responsibilities which are filled by a content editor in terms of creating my proposed app are creating, editing, managing, and regulating the content which is being put out onto the app being seen by the audience. Their job role could go from proofreading some text to check for any mistakes and correct them or add excess information, to testing some of the content on the app to ensure it is useable and to criteria of the target audience while still sticking to the app's own ideologies and the main promoted message to the public users.
- GROWTH OF CONGLOMERATE META
- JOB ROLES NEEDED - GRAPHIC DESIGNER
- JOB ROLES NEEDED - SOFTWARE ENGINEER
- JOB ROLES NEEDED - CONTENT CREATOR
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