Impact of ICT on Every Aspect of Life - Essay Example

Introduction to ICT Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are innovations in terms of products and services which deal with the exchangeof information based on digital transfer among the concerned parties. It is due to the presence of ICT that the world has transformed in to a global village by integrating international business, world economy and different cultures. Today people are completely aware of what’s happening around the globe. Information can travel instantly from one part of the world to the other. People are able to watch live sports from the comfort of their homes noticing every nitty-gritty of the match. Even, the war is being covered and broadcasted live on television; not to mention the live telecast of weddings and funerals of some important and popular personalities. Furthermore, money is also transferred at a much faster pace with the help various methods. 24-hrs banking service is provided via ATMs, phone banking, online banking, credit/ debit cards, etc. All these facilities are made available by means of ICTs. In the present era, information and communication technologies are essential not only for the progress of the country but also for its survival. ICTs have now become the integral part of any system; in particular they have brought the following new implications cyber journalism, communication convergence, e-governance, e-democarcy, e-public relations, etc. in this period of globalization (Prasad 2004). We will further discuss the ICTs and its developments in relation to daily life and particularly to public relation and public communication management which will include the social, organizational, governmental, economical and environmental perspectives of the experts of the related fields. Impact of ICT on Every Aspect of Life ICTs have connected the people together through social networking provided by mobile phones, personal computers and internet. People are able to help each other and even get married by means of this electronic means of interaction. Distance doesn’t matter since people are only a phone call away from each other. This way people travel more often for business or pleasure and still manage to stay connected at office or home. International trade has been increased with the help of information and communication technologies. This global trade includes goods and services being exchanged among different nations. Service industries which especially include public relations and public communication management have also experienced high growth in productivity and profitability by adopting ICTs (Sapprasert 2010). Call centers and software houses are the most successful examples of international trade taking place in terms of services. Thus, the developed countries get their required services at a very low rate while the developing and underdeveloped countries benefit from the foreign trade which brings earning opportunities and reduces poverty for them. The interdependency of different economies resulting through globalization has also brought challenges along with its benefits; such challenges include the current economic crisis worldwide, internet scams, etc. Thus, it is always important for the government to regulate the ICT services to overcome the risk factors associated with them. ICT is also very essential and helpful in good governance. It is now much easier, effective and efficient to lodge a complaint and inquire about a government service. Various humanitarian organizations such as welfare trusts, NGOs, etc., have utilized ICTs to spread human rights and health awareness amongst people; these organizations have also adopted ICTs in their finance management system due to which they are able to collect funds from all parts of the world. The very much needed security is also achievable using the latest ICT devices such as GSM tracking system for vehicle and cell phones, burglar alarms, CCTV, panic buttons, metal detectors and many more. Information and communication technology can also be used as an important tool in the spread of education. Students can access all the latest research and knowledge related to their fields through the internet. Distant learning programs have enabled the students to attain higher education with low expenditure. Another very useful impact of ICTs is the environment protection since various natural hazards such as floods, storms, etc. can be predicted through them. Moreover, ICT has also reduced the use of paper which in turn is beneficial for the environment as many trees are being saved this way. Impact of ICT on Public Relations and Public Communications Management The latest digital social media introduced by the ICT developments has dramatically altered the public relations in a way that the information is created and propagated and also in the speed at which this creation and propagation is carried out. Particularly, in the public relations and public communication management, the Information and Communication Technology is considered to be an extremely important ingredient (Castellacci 2006; Hipp and Grupp 2005; Tidd et al. 2005). Many organizations have adopted these latest developments in the media to develop public relations while others are willing to adopt it soon but still the power of this technology has not yet been effectively utilized to its true potential since it has been analyzed by many experts that the public relations, social media, newswire, etc. should be reinvented to be fully compatible with the latest revolution in the ICTs (CNW 2010). Views of Experts on the Re-invention of PR to Fit in a New Digital World Dee Cayhill, director of Watson Helsby devised and conducted the research on ‘The challenges facing the PR industry’ and found that the following key issues have been encountered while acquiring the digital media. Rules of implementation and loss of control. The practice has provided a lawless and unorganized environment as the content does not go through any editorial checks and the information provided by the company can easily be copied and altered Governance, protection and management of the privacy since the employees are also engaged to a vast extent in the public relations activities online created by the latest ICTs. Since this interaction introduces the threat of providing the market sensitive information of the company to the public online, moreover, it also threatens security of the information system of the company in the wake of the possible data leaks and viruses. Currently, there are no concrete set of rules for managing the public relations through digital communications ad social media Hiring digital communication expert. The people having complete knowledge and understanding of the new technology are very young (below 30 years of age) with less or no professional experience. The other experienced lot (above the age 40) who acquire digital expertise and knowledge but still are unable to develop the complete understanding of the digital world which has resulted in the generation gap in the integration process of digital communication in the organizations Weak online metric systems due to which organizations are unable to evaluate the return on investment (ROI) on their social media development projects Rapid change in digital communications. The technology and tools of social media are evolving at a drastic speed and furthermore, the response time required in the online communication is now to be taken in minutes and hours instead of days or weeks (Helsby 2010). Two researches on the use of online social media in public relations done in Malaysia and Singapore by Fitch found that “there are no rules or rule books for the internet and no test books to learn from”(Fitch 2009: 5). Interactive online media brings about a massive public communication and thus, puts the responsibility on to the shoulders of the organizations to listen and respond accordingly. The interactive social media should require: a well designed set of rules for interacting, to initiate and provoke discussion with basic written substance for policies and pointers, committed contributors and judges, voting systems which enable the citizens to contribute with ease, and tools for analyzing well-structured arguments (Klein, Malone, Sterman and Quadir 2006). Klien (2007) further suggests that the online interactive social system should be designed in a manner such that it provides support in the form of articles for the readers/users so that they get acquainted with the issues and views (both in favor and against), argument maps to find out the ideas and arguments related to a particular topic and easy to use tools for the users to search, add comments or new articles, rate and vote on articles/concepts. Furthermore, Klien (2007) suggests that the interactive system necessarily require editors or moderators to immediately reply to the user’s comments. The social media is also held responsible for reforming the other fields of public communications such as journalism and advertising. The social networks are vulnerable to the threats to privacy of its users. The practitioners are deeply concerned about the issue of the potential abuses to personal information of social network’s users. Views of Experts on ICTs getting Integrated with the Current/Traditional PR Practices In this era, the massive media reaching the mass audience with the extensive use of internet and ICTs is “characterized as the Second Media Age by a decentralized network of communications that makes senders, receivers, producers consumers, rulers ruled, upsetting the logic of understanding of the first media age” (Poster 1995: 33). It was further identified by Poster (2001) that the new mass media is out of the control of the state and democratized with the “two-way decentralized communication system” (Poster 2001: 63). Further, he established that the second media age provides interactive dialogue which he regarded as the vital component for the people to build themselves as subjects and for the better performance of the society (Poster 2001: 82). Hernon, Cullen & Relyea (2006), Kearns 2002 and Macnamara (2009, 2010) saw that the democratic governments of different parts of the world are embracing the interactive web 2.0 media for engaging communities and getting the public participation which is also referred as e-democracy. Deloitte (2008), Wells, Spence-Stone, Moriarty, & Burnett (2008) stated that the interactive web 2.0 formats are also being used for massive online advertising. Mckinsey (2007) reported that the businesses are deploying web 2.0 enabled social networking and media for the purpose of communication and marketing. Merholz (2005, para 5) in his blog states: “Web 2.0 is primarily interesting from a philosophical standpoint. It’s about relinquishing control, it’s about openness, trust and authenticity”. The latest form of communication through the web is related more to culture, especially the participatory culture, than to technology (Jenkins 2006: 243). The opinions of the experts of web and technology have defined the latest online communication system via ICTs as an open and interactive two way communication at human-to-human and human-to content level with the collaborative, creative and intelligent efforts sacrificing the control of information distribution (Macnamara, 2010). With the web 2.0, the ICTs have brought a breakthrough in the public relations which has also been termed as PR 2.0 (Breakenridge 2008) which the Solis (2008) has explained as that the switch of PR (public relation) to PR 2.0 (public relation via web 2.0) has transformed the monologue in to dialogue. Thus, the online social media has been utilized by the practitioners and the people (users) in developing public relations. Although, some analysts argue that there is not much evidence available on the extent to which the networks and media based on ICTs have been utilized in giving rise to public relations as there is “very little scholarly research in communication or public relations about blogging” (Kent 2008: 34). It has been found that in many cases such corporate blogs, the public relations activities are executed by the representatives of a company or an organization who do not consider themselves as public relations people (Kelleher 2009: 185). This further elaborates that the organizations are using ICTs for communication but this does not portray that the public relations are playing a vital role in this context. In fact, it suggests that the PR practitioners are not effectively utilizing the online social media. A study in 2009 concluded that the most of the PR practitioners maintain and use personal blogs as tool for professional communication at a very low level (Porter, Sweetser & Chung 2009). Most importantly, it has been observed that the organizations do not give the customers the privilege of expressing themselves freely and thus, they heavily filter out customer comments in the blogs in this regard to maintain their company’s reputation (Xifras and Huertas 2008). In the 2008 presidential elections campaign by the Barack Obama the online social media was utilized as the platform for political communication which took ICTs to a new level. “Obama’s social network named, ‘MyBarackObama.com was joined by 2,000,000 American people, 5,000,000 people from other social networks joined the Obama’s network as supporters, Obama socializes with 15 online communities, moreover, 400,000 blogs were written and 1,000,000 people joined Obama’s text messaging program” (Vargas 2008). Conclusion The information and communication technologies have unlimited beneficial impacts on the lives of people while there are only a few risks or challenges involved in ICT development and implementation which can be regulated and prevented through proper policies. Thus, better life and opportunities are attained with ICTs since they bring progress, security and prosperity. By all means ICT should be supported and integrated in all sectors and areas covering the rural areas as well. The two-way interactive communication enabled through web 2.0 has provided opportunities for public relations. This two-way symmetrical model of communication has proven to be more ethical and more effective than its previous counterparts which are the one-way distribution of information and asymmetrical models of communication. However, there are several challenges associated with this revolutionary break through of interactive communication system supporting the public relations. Apart from using the enabling tools provided by the social networks, the PR practitioners are required to embrace and persuade the senior managers of their organization that they also embrace the entire package of web 2.0 in its true essence that is in the form of its principles, values, philosophy, culture and future versions or iterations. This would require them to give up the model of control which typically supports the communication practice at the level of corporate and marketing concepts. The online media (web 2.0) has smoothly transformed the public relations from the controlled, slow and hierarchical communication system to a free, swift and symmetrical means of conversation but very less evidence in the form of research and data is available in this regard. This has been established by the practitioners from their experience and knowledge in the fields of ICT and public relations and that is why these experts declare (as mentioned in the previous section of this paper) that ICT will eventually get integrated in the current practices of the public relations and public communication management. On critically analyzing the scenario, it has been found that the practitioners and the management groups consider it to be a bigger issue to give away the command and control of their operations rather than to convert to newer technologies. The latest online social media does not value or require the basic skills of the traditional public relation practice which are organizing interviews and press conferences, writing speeches and media releases. Public relations practitioners have to acquire advanced skills for developing public relations through the online social media or network that is the web 2.0. These advanced skills include initiating online conversation to represent one’s organization, correct fallacious information, protect and advocate on behalf of the organization against criticism. These skills require outstanding talking and listening abilities. These skills also require the PR practitioners to learn a new style or format of writing that is totally in contradiction to the one that is being used in brochure, news releases, speeches, journalism and reports. They also need to learn the new form of media relations. Thus, digital capability should be built and acquired by the public relations industry to avail the benefits of the ICT developments to their true potential that is why many experts (as mentioned above) submit that the public relations need to be reinvented to fit in to the new digital world. The public relations practitioners should make sure that the threats to the privacy or the personal information of the users of the social networks must be identified and restricted. If the data of the profile of the user of the social network is used for marketing or advertising purposes then it gives rise to major issues regarding privacy of the personal information of the user which may lead to public protests, regulation, legal challenges and also, damages the reputation of the concerned authority or organization. Furthermore, maintaining public relations through the social networks helps the management of the organization to carry out better strategies in the best interest of the public and the organization. Thus, the public industry and public communication management should be rejuvenated keeping in view the above mentioned practices, problems and solutions in order to be integrated in and compatible with the new developments of the digital world. 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