Evolution of the Workplace, Analysis of Technology and Improvement Plan

 

Evolution of the Workplace, Analysis of Technology and Improvement Plan

The emergence of new digital technologies and social media platforms over the past 2 decades has had a major impact on the field of professional communications, introducing spectacular and remarkably effective tools for reaching and impacting audiences, while at the same time, creating unanticipated ethical challenges. As the age of social media has matured on the backbone of the internet, businesses and news organizations have had to adapt to reach the eyeballs of their digitally engaged audiences.   In 2023, almost 5 billion people across the globe utilized social media platforms.  On the business side, advertising revenue on these social media platforms is projected to reach a record of almost $220 billion in 2024 (Wong, 2024, Statista, nd).  News organizations have also had to adapt as traditional print and broadcast platforms continue to lose viewership and almost half of Americans use social media platforms for news (Walker & Matsa, 2021).  As AI integrates with communications, it is providing unprecedented capabilities that are already reshaping the communications workplace and changing the paradigm of communication technology, no longer acting as a means through which people communicate, but actually making meaning directly with people (Guzman & Lewis,2020).  

Several digital tools have emerged to replace or enhance the professional communicator’s armamentarium, each presenting a host of benefits and ethical challenges.  Among these tools are blogs/vlogs, microblogs, videos, podcasts and eBooks.  In 2022 there were over 600 million blogs available on the internet, over 3 billion blog posts, and in the US alone, there were over 31 million bloggers (Byers, 2022).  Businesses have learned that content marketing through blogs offers multiple benefits, including the effectiveness of word-of-mouth (WOM) product recommendations when influencers are supportive of a product. For those businesses who host their own blogs, there is an SEO boost, which has been measured to provide over 400% more indexed pages on their websites and almost double the number of backlinks. Given the upside of blogging and content marketing, it is no surprise that 85% of consumer-focused businesses and 91% of B2B focused businesses are blogging and creating other forms of content (Demand Metric, nd; Byers,2022).  AI generated content promises to simply the content development process by automatically generating material, both in text and visual form, automatically customizing content for specific platforms and targeted viewers, based upon their personal preferences.

How Facebook’s Technology Impacted News, Advertising and Public Relations

            Facebook is the largest and most innovative social media platform.  It provides the basis for a comprehensive overview of the impact of technology on professional communications, and on the evolving skills that communicators must master to remain relevant. This section explores how Facebook has impacted the communications world, by discussing several elements in the digital evolution of journalism, advertising and public relations. It should be noted that as Facebook continuously evolves and changes, it places new opportunities and obstacles in the path of communicators, and what are considered best practices today, may quickly become obsolete tomorrow.  During this period of hyper innovation, complacency is not an option. Staying abreast of the constantly changing best practices and applying those practices in communication strategies and messaging campaigns is no longer optional for communications professionals.  

Facebook’s Ever-Evolving Impact on News Organizations

The world of news was heavily impacted by the convergence of new media that began in the 1990s, and more so with the rise of social media or Web 2.0 in the mid-2000s.   This has forced News organizations to continuously scramble to find new sources of revenue. Many initially opted for advertising-based formats as traditional advertising revenue and subscriptions fell, leading most news outlets to offer their content online for free.  Social media ultimately became a large source of new readership, feeding many users to news outlets and exponentially driving up the numbers of readers and advertising revenues for many news organizations.  In recent years, however, some publications have adopted a subscription model that teases social media audiences with interesting lead paragraphs and then requires subscription, or provides a single free sample article, which then encourages readers to subscribe.  Whether free or subscription-based, these news outlets had, until recently, made growing use of Facebook as a means of news dissemination and promotion and lead generation. 

Recently, because of changes that have been implemented by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, Facebook is no longer prioritizing news and the effects are now negatively impacting the viewership of many news organizations.  On February 29, 2024, Meta officially announced that it would be eliminating its news content tab in April of 2024 (Guaglione, 2024).   This was following a period of algorithmic changes to Facebook that already dramatically impacted the number of Facebook referrals that publishers were seeing.  In the case of one publisher, Mother Jones, those referrals dropped from 228,000 visitors in December of 2022 to 67,000 in December of 2023 (Vanian, 2024).  These changes present existential challenges to some news outlets, while forcing most news organizations to once again rethink their business models.  

Facebook has also impacted news organizations in how they develop content to maximize the likelihood that it is seen.  The old, traditional paradigm of the gatekeepers of news, featured the journalist and their editor, who together determined what stories were worth developing and how they would be written. Facebook and the interactive design of social media has restructured the gatekeepers into 3 distinct human and non-human elements, which now include journalists/editors, social actors or media consumers, and the algorithms of social media platforms (Karlsson & Couvering, 2022).  This dilution of the power of journalists/editors to incorporate their ethical training in determining what news is seen, has resulted in the rise of fake news and untrained citizen journalists.  The rise of social media has also mandated that trained journalists be aware of the quirks and preferences of different social media platforms and search engine algorithms. This requires journalists to develop writing skills that allow them to gain more visibility on these platforms and to employ best practices in search engine optimization when writing and posting stories.

How Facebook has Changed the World of Advertising

“We are not the customers of Facebook, we are the product. Facebook is selling us to advertisers." Doug Rushkoff (Rushkoff, 2011)

            There are a number of ways that Facebook has improved the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising. The first is through the platform’s ability to finely target audiences based upon several variables, including demographics, personalities/behaviors and specific interests (Holland, 2018). These abilities are now being fined tuned through the use of AI.  Facebook affords advertisers the ability to track and retarget prospective customers who have expressed interest in their products through Facebook Pixel, a piece of tracking software that captures user behaviors, the webpages they visit, and identifying other products they may be interested in (Dowling, 2023).  Prospective customers are served targeted and retargeted messages that are designed for them, based upon their personalities and preferences, creating powerful and persuasive messaging that incorporate predictive analytics, at a fraction of the cost of unfocused mass advertising.  All of this is accomplished by invading the privacy of Facebook users as the platform generates massive amounts of big data.

            Another way that Facebook has changed traditional marketing is through its inherent social engagement, which allows users to “like” ads and content, and react to them by making comments and by sharing or reposting them, which further amplifies the reach of the original messages (Holland 2018).  This two-way communication between brands and their customers can assist in developing brand loyalty and in addressing problematic issues that arise, before they become crises.  However, the issue of privacy in capturing data remains a powerful area of concern.            

Facebook and the Reinvention of Public Relations

            The field of public relations (PR) has also dramatically evolved over the past 20 years as Facebook and other social media platforms have proliferated. Prior to Web 2.0, the PR tool book primarily consisted of press kits, press releases, photos, video news releases and strategically planned live press events.  These tools were often designed for mass audiences or regionally, locally targeted through respective media outlets.  When available, messages were also segmented to publications and media that catered to specific target audiences. Messages were pushed out and success was measured by the number of publications that picked up the story and their circulation or audience size.  PR professionals were able to increase the likelihood of coverage through effective messaging and through their existing relationships with journalists and editors.

            Today, PR is largely constructed around social media, building trust with target audiences and employing techniques that will increase the likelihood of having communications shared among users and indexed favorably by search engines.  PR is also more actively engaged in marketing, driving messages that lead to conversions.  Because of the multitude and variety of metrics that are available, a good deal of focus for PR professionals is now measuring the outcomes of campaigns.  Much of the central focus of modern PR remains the same, which is to promote products or services and to manage organization-public relationships (OPRs).

            Recent communication theory has focused on how these OPRs relate to PR in the age of Facebook and support the use of dialogic communication processes.  These processes recognize that Facebook is not just a media outlet for sharing information, but a place where organizations benefit by sharing useful, engaging information, that is easy to access, and which incorporates a conversational tone and encourages two-way conversations with their audiences (Johann & Wolf, 2021).  Modern social media tools like Facebook have transformed public relations firms into quasi-marketing agencies.  The efforts of PR professionals in generating content, engaging influencers and implementing contests, helps to drive traffic to organizations’ websites.  Facebook’s pixel tracking program captures visitor data and allows for continuous retargeting of interested viewers through engaging content. Live Facebook events, allow PR agencies to capture additional users for retargeting (Regen, 2019).  The emotional impact of video helps to create highly persuasive messaging and Facebook’s tools allow firms to measure how long viewers stay engaged with videos, which helps to determine which visitors are more likely to lead to conversion (Regen, 2019).

How Technology has Altered the Skills Required for Modern Communication Jobs 

The journalism, public relations and entertainment industries have all been reshaped by modern technologies, requiring new skills to be developed by communication professionals Today, more than 80 percent of Americans use their mobile devices for acquiring news (Schearer, 2021). This relatively sudden adoption of new technology has resulted in several major changes in how professional communications are both delivered and received.  This section will examine how technology has influenced the training needed for modern day journalism.  As the economics of traditional print and television news have changed over the past twenty years, opportunities for journalists have been shifting away from full time jobs with news organizations toward independent freelance journalism.  In this new dynamic, journalists have been challenged to acquire additional skills, in order to succeed in the growing “gig” economy.  The skills include mastering the writing techniques for both the spoken word and the printed word and mastering the writing and technical skills for disseminating their stories on a variety of social media platforms, in print and video, using both short and long-form approaches (Filak, 2023).

In order to appeal to a growing percentage of younger users who are accessing their news through social media, journalists need to create short-form articles and bite-sized microblogs which emulate social media posts, and which are accurate and to-the-point (Traviss, 2024).  To reach and grow their audiences, they need to engage in entrepreneurial activities such as search engine optimization (SEO), by harnessing the power of keywords, hashtags, photography, and video.  In addition, providing additional resource links and establishing relationships with influencers who may be willing to retweet or share articles, and/or provide valuable backlinks to their articles, further strengthens SEO, adding to an increase in audience size.

Persuasive Content, Big Data and Personalized Messaging

            In public relations and marketing, one of the primary functions of professional communicators is to create messages that have the power to persuade audiences to take some action, achieving conversion. These conversions can include the persuasion to purchase a product, vote for a candidate, or change a behavior that supports the goal of an organization.  There are well-recognized methods for developing persuasive communications which have been used for centuries by marketers and propagandists, some of which find their roots in Aristotle’s behavioral theories and have been fine-tuned in the twentieth century through mass media.  More recently, these methods have been adapted and combined with big data in digital marketing to micro target audiences, based upon their individual behaviors and preferences.  Professional communicators should take the time to understand, develop and implement persuasive content development skills, understand how a variety of psychological factors influence audience behavior, and understand the practical use of big data to maximize their opportunities and increase conversions (Braca & Dondio, 2023).

Persuasive Content Development Skills

In a paper, published in 2023, entitled, “Developing persuasive systems for marketing: the interplay of persuasion techniques, customer traits and persuasive message design”, the authors, Braca and Dondio, examine persuasive communication theory and application, and discuss the basic components of the persuasion process and how communicators can employ various techniques to drive conversions.  Driven by the capabilities of technology, shorter attention spans and an audience in that is constantly bombarded with messages, marketers have found that personalized persuasive messaging results in “cutting through the noise” and creating memorable touchpoints based upon the individual psychological characteristics of the target audience.  Through a review of available literature, the authors have created a taxonomy of effective persuasion techniques, which are classified by Psychology, Philosophy and Communication.  Within the psychology domain, the use of cognitive bias techniques, which include flattery, confirmation, stereotyping, status quo, and appealing to audiences’ feelings of superiority, are effective tools to incorporate into digital communications to increase conversion.  Additional psychological devices include, cognitive dissonance, (playing on guilt, regret or shame), framing and heuristic message devices, which are cognitive shortcuts that include the use of authority, social proof, consistency, reciprocity and scarcity, among others.  (Braca & Dondio, 2023).

Philosophical elements of persuasion are derived from the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, and his treatise, “Rhetoric”, and they fall within three categories, logos, pathos and ethos.  Logos messaging appeals to logic, using facts, documentation and reason to establish credibility.  Ethos messaging relies on the credibility of the presenter, often featuring trustworthy messengers that help to generate respect for the message itself.  Pathos messages are designed to appeal to the emotions of the audience, often using stories that generate powerful feelings such as joy, anger and compassion (McCormack, 2014, Braca & Dondio, 2023).

Communication, the third classification of persuasion techniques, places the focus on rhetorical devices that can be carefully crafted to create impact and elicit an emotional response.   These tools include hypophora, the use of questions and answers to provoke critical thinking; epistrophe, using repetition of words at the end of sentences, which may enhance retention; anaphora, which uses repetition of words at the beginning of sentences which follow each other; antanagoge, mixing both negative and positive attributes of a given situation to acknowledge its existence while minimizing the perception of its impact; repetition, used to reinforce ideas and enhance memory; and awareness patterns, which utilize specific words that communicators rely on to trigger anticipated responses in audiences (Braca & Dondio, 2023). 

Understanding Audience Psychology and the Big Five Personality Dimensions

There are several psychological factors that communicators should have a general understanding of, which aid in effective message design.  A general knowledge and understanding of how these factors influence audience behavior will help communicators develop more effective messages.  The “Big Five” taxonomy of personality dimensions classifies individuals as extraverts, agreeable, conscientious, neurotic, and those who are open to new ideas. Individuals who possess these personality types are more likely to be persuaded to act on messaging, when messages are designed to meet the specific characteristics of their personality.

Studies employing neuroimaging indicate that physiology may also be responsible for differences in the way audiences react to various communication stimuli. Research has suggested that normal aging can affect areas of the brain associated with reason, which implies that aging brains may be less willing to change opinions, based on new information.  These elderly individuals with decreased brain function may be susceptible to more biased forms of messaging and therefore may be more likely to be persuaded by heuristic messages, rather than messages that require critical thinking. This research also supports that those with aging brains are more prone to poor decision making (Cacioppo et al., 2017).  

Implementing Big Data and Personalized Messaging

Professional communicators who have developed skills in both persuasive techniques and understanding audience psychology can combine those skills with the transformational insights that are gathered through the use of big data.  This powerful combination of three skills creates an environment that provides unique insight into their target audiences and allows communicators to better predict their behavior.   This deep knowledge of target audience behavior is useful in developing and implementing highly effective personalized messaging campaigns (Okorie et al., 2024).  The challenge for communicators is to develop the advanced data analytic skills and strategies necessary to interpret the massive amounts of data that are at their fingertips and to navigate the privacy and data security issues that surround big data.  AI promised to be an important resource in this area. Communicators that implement big data and AI as part of their skillset will be rewarded through better engagement with their audiences, greater efficiencies in implementing campaigns and greater success in persuading their target audiences (Okorie et al., 2024).

Expectations of Society

Modern communication technologies have altered the expectations of society in numerous ways.  Today’s digital media consumers expect immediate answers to questions, demand instant access to breaking news and streaming media, and expect to have a voice in the communication materials they engage with.   No longer the passive receivers of information, media consumers function with communicators as meaning makers, capable of making or breaking the messaging they receive. News organizations, businesses and the entertainment industry have adapted their business models to this new reality, in order to survive, and in many cases thrive.  As communications technologies have evolved and AI becomes more a part of every day life, there have been winners and losers in this transformative process. Frequently the winners have been big technology and big media and the losers have been smaller creative entities, especially artists. 

The Cultural Effects of Modern Media Technology

As the internet evolved into Web 2.0, the entire field of mass communications reinvented itself from one-way content sharing to a process that involves users in various levels of interactivity and enables them to function as content creators, building their own powers of influence. This democratization of mass media has brought with it many positive attributes, giving voice to once voiceless groups, shedding light on institutional racism, encouraging corporations to engage in socially responsible activities, and addressing and educating users on other challenges that our society faces.  Conversely, the democratization of mass media has also given voice to some of the worst elements of our society, who have benefited from algorithms that divide users by amplifying racism, antisemitism, islamophobia and giving unprecedented wings to fake news and conspiracy theories (Weyna, 2022).  For many years there has been much fanfare around these issues, several times resulting in the CEOs of social media platforms being called on the carpet in congressional hearings, but ultimately, little has changed.  Unlike other communications industries, like broadcasting and journalism, which effectively self-regulate, social media platforms routinely pay lip service to change and then continue to maximize profits, while engaging in the same dangerous behaviors. 

The Damaging Effects of Social Media Platforms

Fake news and conspiracy theories amplified through social media have been responsible for waves of destruction across the globe, affecting election outcomes, undermining public health, and most shockingly, leading to genocide (Wenya, 2022).  The 2016 presidential election provides an example of how a growing campaign of fake news changed election results in the last 3 months of the presidential election, with fake news stories receiving more likes and comments than real news stories from legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and Washington Post (Ali & Zain-ul-abdin, 2021).  Facebook was also a major source of misinformation regarding health information during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading fear and anxiety through global populations and hindering the work of public health officials (Lelisho, 2022).  Nations were also weaponizing social media to spread misinformation to citizens of other nations during the pandemic.  Reuters investigative reporters recently revealed that the United States engaged in a social media campaign to discredit the Chinese COVID vaccine, leading to vaccine hesitancy in residents of the Philippines, through 300 fake X (formerly Twitter) accounts linked to US military officials (Bing & Schectman, 2024).   Of greatest concern, from 2012 to 2017, Facebook had been warned and was aware that its algorithms were putting the lives of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority at risk, by permitting and perpetuating racists and often violent posts among Myanmar citizens, calling for ethnic cleansing (Amnesty International, 2023).    

Attempts to hold Facebook and other social media sites legally accountable for the devastation that their platforms have wrought, have been largely ineffective.  In 2018, United Nations human rights investigators identified Facebook’s responsibility for fueling the hate and violence against the Rohingya (Aljazeera, 2021).    In 2021, Rohingya refugees filed a class action suit against Facebook for $150 billion dollars, because the platform failed to stem the hate speech which led to violence and destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives (Aljazeera, 2021).   Evidence includes Facebook whistleblowers who acknowledged that their platform was “fanning ethnic violence in some countries” (Aljazeera, 2021).   However, the initial case, which was filed in California, was dismissed, because the case was filed too late for a civil injury case and because of social media’s legal savior, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (Jones, 2022).  

Improving the Technological and Cultural Limitations and Issues of New Technology

Social Media and the looming impact of AI technology will continue to have a tremendous impact on how society evolves.  There are a number of important issues that need to be addressed to improve the technological and cultural limitations of these new technologies.  Big technology companies have proven that they are incapable of self-regulation, as evidenced by the current state of social media and the early days of network-to-network media sharing platforms.  Government has a responsibility to step in to remediate some of the most damaging issues. The European Union and a handful of states have had a major impact on internet privacy through legislation, but much more needs to be done, especially in the United States, which often adopts a wait and see attitude and only to pick up the pieces after much damage has been done.  Government also needs to step in and address media literacy in a larger way, in order to create citizens/consumers who are better able to distinguish between what is real and what is fake on social media and the internet.  As AI generated images, video and content begin to saturate social channels, media literacy becomes more and more critical.   Finally, and perhaps most importantly, existing legislation that currently provides internet platforms with immunity, must be adjusted to hold social media platforms criminally and civilly accountable for real damages to life and property in which they may be complicit, through the dissemination of material that is fake, libelous, discriminatory, and that may spread hate with damaging results.  

Revamping Section 230 – Social Media’s Get-out-of-Jail Free Card

According to a 2020 Justice Departments review, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, “provides immunity to online platforms from civil liability based on third-party content”.  Section 230 also provides immunity to platforms that remove offensive material for a number of reasons, including material the platform deems to be obscene, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not it is constitutionally protected.   The provision was originally put in place in the mid-1990s in order to help propel growth in a relatively new internet industry.  The Justice Department acknowledged in 2020 that Section 230 needs to be reformed, 25 years after its initiation, because the internet business no longer needs to be coddled and the blanket immunity has been continually abused by online platforms.

The Justice Department and other legal scholars have proposed a number of  modifications for section 230, designed to put pressure on internet platforms to clean up their acts.  The Justice Department proposed updates which recognized that Section 230 was designed to protect responsible online platforms, not shield platforms that allow content that violates federal law. They also recommended making child exploitation, terrorism, and cyber stalking exempt from Section 230 protection. The Justice Department’s goal was for platforms to become more transparent and accountable, limiting their ability to hide behind Section 230 (Department of Justice, 2020).  Daniell Citron, of the Fordham Law Review, advised the section be revised to provide immunity for a platform that takes “responsible steps to address known unlawful uses of its services that create serious harm to others”. In legal terms, this is referred to as “duty of care” which is common law that recognizes that businesses are expected to take reasonable steps to assure their customers are not harmed.  However, attempts to limit the scope of Section 230 and hold platforms liable continue to fail in court.   Most recently, On July 2^nd, 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought against the platform Snapchat, regarding child sexual exploitation, because the majority of justices believe Section 230 provides broad immunity to platforms.  One of the two dissenting judges, Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote, “Make no mistake about it – there is danger in delay…Social media platforms have increasingly used Section 230 as a get-out-of-jail free card” (Quinn, 2024).

Social Media platforms have become enormously powerful over the past 20 years, maturing into vastly profitable ventures.  However, as their business models have achieved unimaginable success, they have continued to act irresponsibly, creating major issues for countries, businesses and individuals, while empowering hate groups and exploitation. The answers to much of society’s social media-induced problems lie in a thoughtful revision of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.   If social media platforms are open to both civil and criminal liability, they will be compelled to implement effective solutions and refine their algorithms to address the issues they have created.  To paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen, “$150 billion fine here and $150 billion fine there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money”.

Conclusion

Modern communication technologies continue to evolve at an ever-faster pace, bringing powerful tools to professional communicators and new heightened expectations to consumers.   These tools require communicators to continually learn and master new skills to remain competitive in their industries.  While these technologies are providing almost miraculous capabilities for effective and efficient communication, they are also creating a litany of ethical issues that need to be addressed to reduce the societal, personal and professional damages they inflict.  The answer to many of these problems lies in thoughtful and powerful regulations that hold technological platforms responsible for their actions.  

 

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