Tim Starts to Cook

An article in the WSJ states that the new Apple entrepreneur, Tim Cook’s, ability to follow in the footsteps of his late boss, Steve Jobs, is questionable.

Cook’s management strategy differs than Mr. Jobs in a promotional sense. He believes more in the promotion and the iDevices than Mr. Jobs did.

He seems to give more attention to stakeholders outside the firm itself such as consumers and investors. He is increasing the business-consumer relationship by “sending a variety of company-wide emails that address Apple employees as "Team,"”. As for the investors, he is intensifying his meetings with them.

Moreover, his plan is to increase the firm’s corporate social responsibility –philanthropy, to be specific –which will lower the company’s revenue $10,000 yearly while Mr. Jobs opposed charitable programs.

These entrepreneurial strategies may prove to be promising as well as disappointing. The author may think that Tim Cook might not be able to continue “the string of hits that have made Apple the world's largest technology company”, but others might disagree and say “satisfying as much stakeholders as possible is never a hindrance –if not an enhancement”

Apple's Steve Jobs Died

The biggest news in the history of modern technology has come out the past week: Apple’s Steve Jobs died at the age of 56. His death will not only affect Apple as a company but also the media industry as a whole.

There are short-term and long-term effects resulting from Steve Job’s death. Some of these effects will be discussed through this blog post.

The death of a legendary creator is most of the times an advantage to the sales of his creations. This can be applied in any field/industry. Let’s take the music industry for example. The death of the king of pop, Michael Jackson, resulted in a boom in his songs and album sales. The same thing is expected to happen to Steve Job’s iCreations and specially his latest iPhone 4S. People would want to grab the opportunity of owning a device that was created by a legend-to-be.

This affects other competitors in the media industry. Some might have an HP and plan to keep it for another year and then get a new one. But with the Macbooks running out and out of date (with time), they will rush into buying a Macbook Air instead. This influences the sales of HP PCs and other complements such as Windows XP.

Some are suspecting the company’s ongoing success in the long run. At some point, Steve’s modern designs will become old and so Apple is under the pressure of following in his footsteps of creating newer and more unique devices. “In 1985, the company began a steady decline that saw it drift to the margins of the computer industry” all because Steve Jobs was fired. It was only when he came back to the company that it started to rise again in 1997. That being said, some believe that the exact thing will happen to Apple’s sales today.

If this is proves to be true, it will be an advantage to other PC companies and their complements as their devices will rise in demand and therefore have their years of prosperity.

Ethical Issues in Media

The media industry with its various branching industries faces a good chunk of ethical issues. The advertising industry itself brings most of these issues. And then we have the social media companies such as Facebook which are also the most controversial. Other sub-industries of media raise some ethical issues but are not as influential. In my opinion, the publishing industries are the least controversial if not at all.

One of the most controversial ethical issues in the advertisement industry is the use of sexual imagery in some ads –a term referred to as “sex sells”. Many people consider this tactic unethical and misleading. For example, Apple –one of the most successful/popular company selling electronic products– uses a shadow of a naked woman and a playboy-bunny earpiece wire as a marketing strategy to attract more customers to buy their products. This may be considered offensive to parents who are concerned about their child seeing such images.

Another method advertisement companies often use carry discriminatory messages and may cause prejudice for some people. For example, many consider Fair & Lovely –a company selling skin clarity products – TV commercials racist. This is due to the fact that they assume that women are happier with lighter skin.

Operators of TV broadcasting sometimes display pornographic images or reality TV shows that portray a message that is supposed to be directed only for a certain audience of certain age. No parent would want their child watching 18+ rated movies for the sexual and psychological implications it causes. They would want to make sure that their child is having a healthy childhood. Reality shows mess with people’s minds the most. Since viewers think they’re “real”, their message is going to be the most influential. Therefore, reality show producers should be very careful when choosing their theme point –in which unfortunately they’re not. Shows like the Bachelor influence what people think of relationships and how men treat women and so on.

With social media comes a whole stack of issues related to ethics; from hacking to abusing to privacy concerns. Many facebook users deactivated their accounts due to other people stalking their profiles which gave them a sense of insecurity. You might think social media networks are harmless, but they cause levels of harm from simple such as losing your privacy to criminal such as child abuse, rape and murder. To illustrate, there’s a story that Oprah thought was of major importance where a 14-year-old child called Kristin was raped by a 27-yer-old man and then committed suicide all resulting from social networking dangers.

Most newspapers carry only ethical messages and are of highest ethical standards amongst other forms of

media. In fact, their only relation to ethical issues is discussing them and raising more awareness to prevent and/or reduce them.