Question: Marketing and the Digital Future In-Class Test Guidelines

Proposition 1: Peer to peer platforms will completely transform the economy in ways we have barely begun to imagine.

New way / medium (enabling new business models) to conduct business with individuals in the centre and not (only) companies [Uber, AirBnB, eBay]; valid and useful for some industries and product types but peer-to-peer platforms are unlikely to dominate all industries; search - pricing - trust are the key issues here that can either positively affect doing commerce or hamper commerce

Proposition 2: The Twentieth Century was America's century but the notion that the Twenty First Century will be belong to China is ridiculous. It will be India's.

China [or maybe India - another one - undecided: Discuss key scenarios!]
Reason: high-tech capabilities / technological innovation (India has some highly regarded high-tech as well); demographics (population size and projected growth); economic (purchasing power, growth of the respective economy); political (communism versus largest democracy); military (interventionism or not...); culture (cultural imperialism by the USA in the 20th century - global culture was in effect USian)

Proposition 3: Digital platforms empower publics sufficiently that Grunig's and Hunt's Theory (1984) is now a reality.

General theory of PR; close link between strategic management and PR (i.e. strategy informs PR and PR should not primarily be seen as a function of marketing - strategy needs to be integrated with PR); Stakeholder Theory (different kinds of stakeholders need to be managed and, in the end, satisfied); initially, limited range of countries in the sample, but later replicated in Slovenia; positive outcomes: reduced risk of litigation and increased revenue; symmetrical system of internal communication as well as communicating with externals; in PR the role of women, ethnicity and race (i.e. diversity) is valued; theory can be applied in many contexts as long as it takes contextual variables into account

Proposition 4: A communication professional should never lie for a client.

Wide range of roles is represented by the term ‘communication professional', e.g. PR and advertising, general marketing, crisis management by CEOs (Mark Zuckerberg in from of Congress); range of clients is wide as well (e.g. different stakeholders); what is a lie? [is this a clear-cut decision? Probably not! Difficult to judge - where is the line between imprecision and a lie? Intention from the part of the communication professional is key! Four variables: definition of communication professional, definition of client, definition of lie, and definition of never/almost never; CSR might be touched upon; selective giving of information: where is this on the lie scale?

Proposition 5: Global environmental issues can only be tackled by a transnational executive with regulatory and policing powers established under the UN.

Global environmental issues (e.g. deforestation, global warming, water pollution (e.g. plastic), desertification, air pollution); body under UN control with transnational powers; problem: some countries will vehemently oppose it (e.g. USA), so where does that leave the transnational approach?; transnational approach is only one perspective of how these issues can be tackled, and local / regional / country-level approaches may be equally (if not more) successful [is there an opportunity to co-ordinate between the transnational approach and the local / regional / country-level approach?]

Proposition 6: The business of business is business.

Three different meanings of ‘business': Business 1: purpose/rationale/reason; Business 2: organisation/company/government; Business 3: making a profit / maybe also providing benefits [benefits can be monetary or non-monetary]; The business of business is providing something useful (to whomever); something useful needs to be provided but this does not have to make money necessarily; for-profit organisations versus not-for-profit organisations; even a not-for-profit organisation should aim to be efficient; stakeholder theory has potentially a role to play; deliberate loss-makers in an organisation; some CSR activities/product recalls will actually cost companies money overall; ethical considerations may actually lead to a lesser focus on profit

Proposition 7: Wikileaks needs to focus on corruption in the developing world.

Yes, but...! Maybe it should not be the key focus but it is surely one of the various foci.; problem: Wikileaks may contravene laws but aims to combat corruption/unlawfulness? Does that work? Are there not problems associated with this?; Robin Hood analogy; why corruption and not war crimes etc.?; corruption rankings of countries (Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) may be worth looking at (remember that it is about developing countries); corruption is seen as necessary in some parts of the world!; different types of corruption; from the proposition it is not clear who is corrupt (depending on who is corrupt, your stance against the proposition may differ)

Proposition 8: The prevalence of fake news shows that there are no longer any gatekeepers in the media. People need to assess all sources critically.

Three concepts are present here: fake news, need for gatekeepers, critical assessment of sources; gatekeepers: traditionally, journalists in large media organisations did active investigations, decided what is likely to be of relevance to people, and published that, thus acting as a quality assurer minimising fake news; fake news: a term which recently has become widely known but there has always fake news (or maybe bias is a better term); nature of social media (bi-directional communication) prevents the concept of a gatekeeper; the fact that the role of gatekeepers is diminished in social media means that the individual news consumer needs to act as the assessor of all sources; but be careful: even traditional media has bias (media bias); confirmation bias: if you accept all news items in one news source as gospel, then you are blind to other opinions (even if those are clearly correct); yes, all sources need to be assessed critically but maybe some sources need to be more critically assessed than others (e.g. state-controlled media, ownership of publishing companies)