Effects of Cell Phone Advertising for the Last 20 Years
Essay title: Effects of Cell Phone Advertising for the Last 20 Years
Effects of Cell Phone Advertising for the last 20 years
This paper sets out to explore the correlation between cell phone advertising and the effects it has had on our society. I will provide evidence that advertising has transformed our social norms in regards to cell phone usage. First topic of discussion will be on the history of the cell phone, discussing the advances they have made in the last 20 years. Next will be the discussion of advertising as a separate entity, and then confer advertising regarding cell phones. I will also be discussing some social and cultural implications of all the new cell phone users. By the end of this paper you will be convinced that there is a correlation between cell phone advertising; how and who use’s them.
To start off, a brief history of the cell phone from its humble beginnings, and into the 21st century of a necessity like use. When cell phones were first introduced to the public, they were bulky, expensive, and some even required a base unit that had to be transported along with the phone. Good reception was a major problem and in general, early cell phones could only be used in certain locations were the signal was particularly strong. As cell phone technology advanced, the difficulty in using them became less of a problem. Today, cell phone reception has improved greatly due to the use of satellites and wireless services. As cell phones improved and became simple to use, the importance of cell phones increased accordingly. According to Mary Bellis, the basic concept of cellular phones began in 1947, when researchers looked at crude mobile (car) phones and realized that by using small cells (range of service area) with frequency reuse they could increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones substantially (
The next topic of discussion involves advertising and how it has affected cell phone usage. According to Jib Fowles, advertising is defined as the process of paid-for messages that attempt to transfer symbols onto commodities, in which to increase the likelihood that these commodities will be found appealing and be purchased. According to Stuart Ewen, modern advertising must be seen as a direct response to the needs of the masses (Ewen, 1976). Cell phone companies saw that the public was becoming more accepting of technology, specifically technology that makes our lives easier. They also noticed that society was moving towards a much faster passed life style. Cell phone advertisers originally marketed towards the successful business person and was selling them on the idea that time is money. Therefore, mobile phone can save you time, and money. Advertisements from the 1980’s show business men arriving at the airport, while talking on there phone, with a caption stating how he is going to be home sooner to see his family. According to Jib Fowles, advertising messages coming in the form of print advertisements or electronic commercials are conspicuously more tendentious than instances of popular culture; their intent is to get consumers to do something that consumers might well not do without them (Fowles, 1996). Cell phone advertising in the 80’s got many business people to purchase expensive cell phones that were big and bulky and had poor reception. However, the social connotation of being a businessman/woman with a cell phone was much greater than the use one might receive from it. According to Vicki Yung, this social change brought about by technology is not limited to the consequences of its technical functions. All artifacts acquire ideological meanings in society through time (Yung, 2005). The cell phone ads of the 80’s and early 90’s motivated business people to purchase and use cell phones. After the cell phone companies had succeeded in increasing cell phone subscriptions from 340,000 in 1985 to 44