Changes to Rough Draft

My rough draft to module 3 was just that. Rough. I like to start with a general outline and just pour all my thoughts into the draft. It may not be cohesive or structurally sound by any means, but it is just an effective way for me to stream my thoughts. I try to get the tough part situated first. That being the works cited, I included that in my rought draft. Basically from that point I marry my thoughts into something that makes sense and flows nicely from one point to the next, eliminating what I like to call "fluff". I find that when I dont do some kind of outline I end up missing points that I felt were important to include. Elimination of what does not support the thesis is an important part of tieing it all together and another part of the transformation from the outline to the actual finished piece.

Module3 Final

Consumer purchases are at times second nature. When making a purchase it is not usual for a buyer to think why they chose an item or what utility it offers to them. As simple a task as that may seem, there is a sort of science behind how consumers purchase and the steps taken that affects their decisions. It is the field of marketing that put this into perspective. You could say that marketing is the science of validating, altering and confirming consumer’s purchasing decisions. Three articles I’ve found support the idea that marketing has a great impact on buyer’s decision making.
In her article “Missed College Market: They Have Millions in Spending Power, but Businesses Might be Missing an Opportunity by not Marketing to College Students” (Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, 2008), Jane Brisset explores the opportunities many business miss out on by not targeting the college market. She supports her view with many facts and statistics that put the loss of potential into monetary figures. She goes on to say, “Nationwide, college students and their parents will spend $36.6 billion returning to campus this year.” The impact of not marketing to this age group is evident with this fact. The reality is, college enrollment is increasing year over year, and this group could easily drive an economy to be successful. According to Brisset, it is unclear why businesses are missing the mark when it comes to college students spending power. She writes, “I think it's ignored because these people are easily overlooked.” When businesses fail to notice this group, they are overlooking billions of dollars.
On the other hand, there does seem to be one business in particular that does not neglect the opportunity to profit from the college age market. The alcohol industry spends millions of dollars a year making their products available to that market. Another article explores this premise. The article, entitled “The marketing of alcohol to college students: The role of low prices and special promotions.” The author of this article, Meichun Kuo, investigates the use of marketing to introduce alcohol to college age students. It is no secret that many college students suffer from binge drinking and many die from
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this epidemic. According to studies conducted by the author, “Among the 830 on-premise locations surrounding college campuses, the prices for a single drink, pitcher, or the largest volume were significantly correlated with college binge-drinking rates: The lower average alcohol sale price among on-premise establishments surrounding the college campus, the higher the college binge drinking rate.” These businesses are effectively marketing to the group resulting in high profits for the business but it leaves them with an ethical dilemma. Although businesses are operating to make a profit, they also have a social responsibility to know where to draw the line. Prices and promotions show a direct correlation with college students and binge drinking. The author goes on to discuss the efforts to reduce binge drinking and how they have mainly been centered on education and changing the behavior of college students. Ultimately the author supports reform of marketing regulation and practices to alleviate the problems marketing alcohol to college students creates.
Demonstrated in an editorial by Jane Workman, the article “Promotional Product Marketing, College Students and Social Identity” explores ways companies market their product with the use of promotional items. According to Workman, "Promotional products marketing is an umbrella term for imprinted merchandise such as T-shirts, writing instruments, baseball caps, and coffee mugs" (Workman 1). Often these items are distributed throughout college campuses to raise awareness of their products and services. These can include alcohol and credit card companies promoting their products. Workman conducted an on campus study to determine the amount of exposure college students have with this type of merchandise. Among students at one university, more than 45% owned alcohol promotional items, with T-shirts and hats the most common items (Workman, 2004). While this practice seems to be popular among companies, Workman does discuss the effectiveness of this type of marketing as well. The conclusion she draws from her study supports the idea that “many promotional items are effective
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in promoting a company's product; some may be too effective in promoting products that are harmful to the financial, physical, or mental health of consumers” (Workman 2004). The fact that businesses spend enormous amounts of money on this type of marketing proves that is a very effective way to raise brand awareness.
The truth is marketing is a powerful and effective tool. Corporations are wise to the successes that marketing has brought to them and will continue to use this tool to their advantage. Ethical or not, it is an important part of consumerism and doing business.












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Works Cited
Harvard School of Public Health. "Binge Drinking Tied To Conditions In The College Environment." ScienceDaily 14 July 2008. 14 November 2008 .

" Knight Ridder Tribune Business News 28 August 2006 1. ABI/INFORM Dateline. ProQuest. University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 6 Nov. 2008


Jane E Workman, Beth Winfrey Freeburg. "Promotional Product Marketing, College Students, and Social Identity. " Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences 100.1 (2008): 43-49. Research Library. ProQuest. University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 16 Nov. 2008

Extremely Rough Draft..Module 3

Started as an outline.
Citations included within each article
Rough Draft Module 3

Article 1.
Topic: Businesses miss the mark by not marketing to college students
Thesis: Business in college towns are losing out of a lot of potential money by not marketing to college students.
Audience: For this article the audience would be everyone really, Consumers and businesses alike.
Information Relay (how): The author uses a lot of facts and statistics to support the thesis.
Jane Brissett. "Missed college market?: They have millions in spending power, but businesses might be missing an opportunity by not marketing to college students. " Knight Ridder Tribune Business News 28 August 2006 1. ABI/INFORM Dateline. ProQuest. University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 6 Nov. 2008

Article 2
Topic: Marketing alcohol to college students
Thesis: Many deaths of college students from binge drinking can be partly blamed to the companies that market their products to students
Audience: Institutions and students and also parents
Information Relay (how): The author conducted a study within a college campus to gather information


Article 3
Topic: Promotional product marketing, College students, and social identity
Thesis: How students in an identity exploration phase are often marketed to by businesses and the nature of the marketing
Audience: Students and universities and marketing departments
Information relay (how): With facts and studies Jane E Workman, Beth Winfrey Freeburg. "Promotional Product Marketing, College Students, and Social Identity. " Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences 100.1 (2008): 43-49. Research Library. ProQuest. University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 6 Nov. 2008 http://www.proquest.com/

Response-Gender Differences in "Social Portraits"

As a female with a long since closed Myspace account I can agree with the author of this article. I just find the whole thing silly to be quite honest. While I enjoyed the interaction and keeping in touch with friends that I did not get to often see, it seemed as if the premise of many users was to try to prove something. With their outlandish profile pictures and about me sections that seemed to just be there to how happy and how pretty they are. Browsing other profiles gave me hours of amusement, and maybe a few "are you kidding me right now" moments.
If you consider men and women in general outside of the cyber world, men are still generally less apt to reveal personal information about relationships and such. Why would that be any different on the web? It seems like females, for the most part, lose a lot of individuality and try to make it into some type of competition in most social networking sites.

Module 3 Experiment

Cell Phone Detox

This experiment will test the effects on ones social and daily life when they are put to the test of no cell phone use for an entire week.
This case study will consist of three groups of five people. Group one will be within the age range of 20-30. Group two 31-40 and group three 41-50.
Each group will be required to go sans cellular phone for one calendar week. Groups will have no access to any cellular device or feature for the duration of the experiment. They will be required to take a daily journal reflecting on how they cope without the use of their phone. They will log in their journal how they keep in contact with friends and family, how not having their phones affects their day to day. This includes how the absence affects their personal and business relationships. They will also keep not of how they scheduled social time and if there was an increase or decrease in those interactions throughout this week.
Groups will then report back at the end of the week and results will be determined based on the journals that are turned in.The groups are broken down into age brackets to see if the effect will vary by age. There will also be a control group within the same age range that will not be required to go without their mobile phones. These groups will also be required to keep the journal. The control group will help determine if in fact the mobile phone users have much less social interaction than those without the phones

Individualism Module 3 Essay

It was a mere 35 years ago that the first call was made from a cellular phone. The invention can be credited to Dr. Martin Cooper and the Motorola Corporation. In 1973 a cordless land line phone was unheard of, let alone a phone that allowed you the freedom to be mobile while placing a call. It is amazing how far this technology has developed and just how advanced these devices have become in such a short time. These devices have opened so many new doors from mobile internet to wireless navigation and can even help to keep a watchful eye on your children. While the invention of the cellular phone may be recognized as one of the greatest inventions ever, one can only wonder what affect this invention has had on the social order in society. The mobile phone has many critics that suggest that the cell phone has single handedly destroyed the social order. While the cell phone has undoubtedly altered the social order, it has opened far more doors in society than it has closed.
For some, it is hard to remember back to a time when the cell phone did not exist. If you needed to get in contact with someone, it was done with a letter, landline call or face to face interaction. If that person was not at home to catch your call, you simply had to try again later. Hans Geser, author of “Is the Cell Phone Undermining the Social Order?” argues that the cellular phone has damaged society’s ability to interact on a social level.
When determining the effect the cell phone has had on the social order, it is important to understand what is meant by social order. According to Wikipedia, social order is a concept sociologists use to describe “a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce "normal" ways of relating and behaving.” This is meant to describe how groups relate to one another and interact on a social level.
Geser suggests in his article, that the cell phone has a “potentially subversive and regressive impact of mobile telephony—reconnecting the individual with a smaller, tighter social world, one which is perhaps solipsistic in its concentration on small individual social networks, oblivious to the larger institutional society surrounding it. While his argument shows strong points to support his theory, there are strong points to the latter.

In fact, with all the advances in the wireless industry it is hard to believe that the cell phone has caused a sort of regression in society and individuals interactions. The cell phone allows for much more freedom in communication in a time when individuals tend to be busier than ever. With more people out in the working world, it leaves less time for social interaction. Families and relationships would suffer if it weren’t for the service a mobile phone provides to them. Having the ability to be in contact at the push of a button no matter where you are in the world can only bring people together.

Furthermore, the typical familial structure has seen drastic changes over the 35 year period that the cellular phone has been around. Society has moved from a structure of extended families to a more nuclear structure. The family makeup has gone from a large unit consisting of parents, grandparents and children under one roof to a structure that consists of parents and their children. Families have often moved across state lines leaving behind many loved ones in the process. Families tend to be spread more widely across the nation and even continents. The cell phone has become an indispensable part of the new family structure. The cellular phone helps to bring these families closer together. When face to face interaction is just not an option, the wireless phone is a suitable alternative.
In addition to bringing families closer together, the cell phone offers parents and care takers a piece of mind when caring for children and loved ones. It allows parents to know where there child is at all times. The cell phone allows parents to be with their children when they cannot physically be there. This helps to settle any worry that parents and caretakers may have when they send their child out into t he world. After all, interaction with your child is still a part of the social order, and any device that makes that communication easier increases the overall amount of interaction.

Similarly, the cell phone has lent a hand to many business owners and entrepreneurs. Liz Robbins, an author for the NY Times writes, “Technology, of course, has accelerated this development. As frequent international business travelers can attest, mobile phones have shrunk the distance between land masses, making it like prehistoric times when all the continents touched.” Mobile phones offer something that quite simply cannot be replaced. They make doing business in this great big world seem like working out of your back yard. Having the ability to carry out business with a client across the globe without ever having to get a passport is advancement and an improvement to the social order. The cellular phone allows many businesses and entrepreneurs opportunities they may not have seen otherwise. Wireless phones offer a wide array of programs and business solutions. They allow business professionals the freedom to roam while never missing a prospect. The cell phone expands the range of business and does not limit it to the office. Wireless internet cards allow 24 hour internet access and enables users to take the office with them. The cell phone helps to maximize productivity and profitability in the business world.

While the cell phone has undoubtedly altered the social order, we must remember that times have drastically changed from the time that the mobile phone was created. The cell phone has become a medium in the social order of the modern time. As technology advances, changes in how society interacts follow closely behind. It’s time to redefine the social order and include the cell phone as an integral element. Use of a cell phone has become a “normal” part of societal relations.

Module 3 Questions

Essay Questions
In reference to the article about cell phone use and the social order, these are the essay questions I came up with.


The author says “In this way, the mobile can function as
a “pacifier for adults” that reduces feelings of loneliness and vulnerability in any
place and at any time. A similar metaphor conceptualizes the cell phone as an
“umbilical cord”, making social emancipation processes more gradual and less
traumatic by allowing parents and children to retain a permanent channel of communication
during periods of spatial distance “ How does the use of cell phones promote these instances and what effects may this have on parent/child relationships later in life?

The author argues that: Cell phones can even more effectively be used to shield one’s self from wider surroundings by escaping into the narrower realm of highly familiar, predictable
and self-controlled social relationships with close kin or friends.
Do you agree or disagree with this notion? Are cell phones used as merely an excuse to not interact socially?


According to the author, “In general, the cell phone can give new impetus to the old-fashioned idea that individuals “belong” exclusively to particular groups, communities or organizations—
to which they have to be committed unconditionally for limitless hours. This idea clashes totally with all of the recent societal developments that have provided a secure basis for individual autonomy: for the individual capacity of everyone to maintain a secure private sphere as well as to divide his or her commitment to several segregated roles.” Does the cell phone encourage exclusion or inclusion within society? How may the use of a mobile phone encourage this type of behavior? Provide examples to support your idea

The author also states that “Homes, churches or school buildings will of course continue to symbolize the unity of families, parishes or schools as organizations and institutions. However, they may become “empty shells” without much determining influence on what is “really going on” on the level of social communication and cooperation.” What do you feel the author meant by this statement, and what effect does the use of a mobile phone have on these institutions?

Do you agree or disagree with the author on this subject? Are his ideas about cellular phones and the social order extreme, or do you feel he is right on in his thinking? Use examples to support your ideas.