Hierarchy of Organizational Communications - Essay Example

Media Management Final Essay Introduction Media is a dynamic field that keeps changing and reinventing itself to meet the changing needs of the consumers and remain relevant. I have learnt a lot about the various key functions of managing the media industry. This knowledge will go a long way in helping me appreciate the role played by the media and change my attitude towards it. It has also given me in depth knowledge about this industry, sparking my interest in it and giving me a general overview of my future role as a manager in media. Media house management Training of media managers is very important in order to develop good journalism in their companies, which will in turn lead to greater professionalism as well profitability. Managers of media houses must understand why good journalism fits their mission to effectively manage their companies. Radio and television managers must share the same basic principles of responsible journalism as the people they hire in running their newsrooms. Regardless of how enthusiastic, well trained and forward thinking journalists may be, public affairs and news programming stand little chance of growth unless the motivation and expertise of airing something, with the exception of music, is nurtured at the management level (Albarran, 2005). Inexperienced station managers may view maintenance of news as capital intensive and very risky politically and decide not to venture into it. Such managers must familiarize themselves with the numerous examples from other media houses in recent years where the risks have paid off well in terms of loyal audiences, favorable public perception and increased revenue. Managers should evaluate the skills of their newsroom in order to understand the qualities of good news and public affairs programs and also how to maximize advertisement sales due to the effect of local news programming. In addition to supporting doing of news as a community service, media managers must also familiarize themselves with the basics of journalistic ethics because it is them who will the final arbiters and not journalists whenever there are accusations, disputes or ethical calls to be addressed. Although, a fundamental understanding of the characteristics and role of good journalism is important for media managers, it is not an end in itself, but just a beginning. The managers must expose themselves to and learn a wide range of practices to enable them create and run companies capable of surviving in local economies and provide model levels of public levels. Media house management should acquaint themselves with key functions of media management such as ethics and law in broadcasting, technology and engineering, station promotion and identification and production and creativity. Others include sales principles, advertising and pricing, structure of a radio or TV station, and broadcast programming. Hierarchy of organizational communications needs Just like Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, there is also a hierarchy of organizational communications. The basic level of communication is the customer service that involves being available to execute communications on a responsive and professional basis, but not ordering anything more. This involves the media personnel just doing their job and has been compared to Maslow's physiological needs for food, shelter and water. From customer service, the level of communication goes up to 'media' where an appropriate range of media resources where the work is well produced and receives a high audience rating. This is a very secure and safe way of meeting the needs of the customers but does not add anything more. It is very much like Maslow's human safety need. Achieving the third level of communication requires a little more effort since media development becomes more goal-oriented because it defines the audience and the message and sets priorities to reach its communication objectives. This is the stage where communications becomes more proactive and the level of the work must be scaled down to the level of the problem or need. The highest level of communications is known as the 'strategies' level where communications becomes fully proactive and communicators seek out problems and their root causes. They do this in partnership with the stakeholders to create solutions and critically measure these results. It is important for communications managers to know the costs of their businesses and focus on the company business and must be very ruthless in eliminating redundancies and waste. Competencies media houses must develop to profit from changes in technology Media houses should be platform strategists and understand the unique attributes and capabilities of each platform by knowing their consumers and identifying their unmet needs while understanding their own strengths and offerings in order to develop their products accordingly. Media houses must start thinking like the best marketers by carefully defining their brands while at the same time developing a deep a deep consumer engagement with these products. The first step involves a more clear identification of what makes them different in the market place and determine their unique values and the role they play (Albarran, 2005). Media houses must help in community building by connecting people who share interests using technology and their position in the society. Use of the ever increasing technological capacity to help individuals and groups share information will help media houses to effectively shape dialogue, enabling consumers to link to discussions of increasingly wider context (Albarran, 2005). Media organizations that become experts in data mining and managing ca develop great depth of insight about their consumers and use it in delivering both targeted advertising and personal content profitably. This can go a long way in helping to unlock their archival and content and create a market niche for themselves, hence increasing their revenue (Albarran, 2005). Digital technologies provide media organizations with a set of tools and a much broader palette to be used in their story telling, enabling them to tell complete stories. Digital technologies provide a combination of videos, photos and text together with interactivity, charts, games and much more, offering the consumer a wider variety to choose from. A media house that strives to excel in these technologies will raise itself to a higher level than its competitors in terms of competency and value delivery to the consumer (Albarran, 2005). In the current business environment, media houses must develop their thinking to be in tune with that of entrepreneurs in order to identify the assets they can leverage as well as any new services they are capable of offering and pursue partnerships, experiment smartly and develop new advertising models to keep pace with the ever changing and increasing competition among the media houses (Albarran, 2005). Conclusion Media organizations can no longer afford to remain complacent and stagnant and expect to maintain their profitability and relevance in the society today. They must keep reinventing themselves to keep up with the changing demands of its clients and the business environment. Moreover, media house managers must also be good journalists for them to face the challenges of this industry and instill professionalism into their organizations. Media houses need to move to the highest level of communications organization hierarchy of needs, which is the 'strategies' level, to serve the community effectively and profitably. Equipped with this knowledge, my attitude and interest in media has changed for the better and I feel ready to get into this sector and develop myself professionally to make a great career out of it. Reference Albarran, A (2005) Management of Electronic Media, Thomson/Wadsworth Read More