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Part 3: Digital, Social, and Visual Media
Students might find this to be one of the more interesting phases of the course because it shows them how
business professionals use many of the same media they use, from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube.
Chapter 7 address digital media, specifically those that have little or no social component (in the sense of
real-time or near-real-time interaction among a larger audience): email, instant messaging, text
messaging, website writing, and podcasting. Chapter 8 covers social media, including social networks,
information and media sharing sites, wikis, and blogging and microblogging. Chapter 9 addresses visual
media, including the wide variety of charts and graphs used in business, along with new material on
digital video.
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Chapter 7: Digital Media
This is the first of three chapters that focus on specific media types. Chapters 7 and 8 address written and
oral messages transmitted via digital channels; Chapter 7 focuses on those media without a strong social
component (email, messaging, websites, and podcasting), and Chapter 8 focuses on those with a strong
social element (social networking, information- and content-sharing sites, blogs, microblogs, and wikis).
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Digital Media for Business Communication
Digital and Social Media Options
Compositional Modes for Digital and Social Media
Optimizing Content for Mobile Devices
Email
Planning Email Messages
Writing Email Messages
Completing Email Messages
Messaging
Advantages and Disadvantages of Messaging
Guidelines for Successful Messaging
Website Content
Organizing Website Content
Drafting Website Content
Podcasting
Understanding the Business Applications of Podcasting
Adapting the Three-Step Process for Successful Podcasting
Learning Catalytics is a “bring your own device” student engagement, assessment, and classroom
intelligence system. It allows instructors to engage students in class with real-time diagnostics. Students
can use any modern, web-enabled device (smartphone, tablet, or laptop) to access it. For more
information on using Learning Catalytics in your course, contact your Pearson Representative.
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LECTURE NOTES
Section 1: Digital Media for Business Communication
Learning Objective 1: Identify the major digital media formats available for business messages, and list
nine compositional modes used in electronic media.
Today’s business communicators have a broad range of media options for sending short messages:
• Email
• Messaging (including IM, text messaging, and workplace messaging systems such as Slack)
• Web content
• Podcasting
• Social networks
• Information- and content-sharing sites
• Wikis
• Blogging and microblogging
• Online video
The first four are covered in this chapter. The various social media, from social networks to microblogs,
are addressed in Chapter 8. Online video is covered in Chapter 9 along with other visual media.
While most of your business communication is likely to be via digital means, don’t overlook several
situations when you should use a printed message over digital alternatives:
• When you want to make a formal impression
• When you are legally required to provide information in hardcopy form
• When you want to stand out from the flood of digital messages
• When you need a permanent, unchangeable, or secure record
Compositional Modes for Digital and Social Media
You can succeed with written communication in virtually all digital media by using one of nine
compositional modes:
• Conversations
• Comments and critiques
• Orientations
• Summaries
• Reference materials
• Narratives
• Teasers
• Status updates and announcements
• Tutorials
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These compositional modes are useful in any form of business writing, of course, but they
are vital in digital media because these platforms require specific types of writing.
Moreover, digital messages are often divided and distributed over two or more channels. For
example, you might announce a new blog post with a teaser on your Twitter account and a
brief summary on your Facebook page, both of which point readers to your company-hosted
blog for the fully story.
Optimizing Content for Mobile Devices
Mobile expands your options as a content creator, and it gives your audience members a wider range
of engaging ways to consume your content:
• Location-based services, including location-based social networking
• Gamification
• Augmented reality
• Wearable technology
• Mobile blogging
• Mobile podcasting
• Cloud-based services
Section 2: Email
Learning Objective 2: Describe the evolving role of email in business communication, and explain how to
adapt the three-step writing process to email messages.
Email has been a primary medium for many companies for several decades, but its early advantages have
been superseded for some uses by other digital options.
One of email’s biggest disadvantages, ironically enough, is its ease of use—sending too many messages
to too many people is too easy.
However, email still has compelling advantages:
• It is universal; anybody with an email address can reach anybody else with an email address.
• It is still the best medium for many private, short- to medium-length messages.
• Its noninstantaneous nature can be an advantage; many messages do not need the rapid update
rates of IM or Twitter, and the implied urgency of those systems can be a productivity-sapping
interruption.
Planning Email Messages
First and foremost, don’t contribute to the email blizzard: Make sure every message you send is
necessary.
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Follow company email policies:
• Many companies now have formal email policies that specify how employees can use
email, including restrictions against using company email service for personal messages
and sending material that might be deemed objectionable.
• Other concerns include the possibility of disclosing confidential information and
exposing company networks to security problems.
• Many employers also monitor email.
• All email users have a responsibility to avoid actions that could cause trouble.
Even with brief email messages, devote a moment or two to the planning tasks: make sure you
understand the situation, gather any information you’ll need, and think about how you’ll organize
your message. No one has the time to pick through rambling email messages looking for key points.
Writing Email Messages
Recognize that business email is more formal than social email and the consequences of bad writing
or poor judgment can be much more serious.
Email messages have the same legal weight as printed documents and are often used as evidence in
lawsuits and criminal investigations.
Subject lines are one of the most important parts of email messages because they can determine when
and if a message is read:
• Make sure your subject line is informative and compelling.
• Do more than just describe or classify your message—build interest with key words,
Completing Email Messages
Take a few moments to revise and proofread your message before you send it.
Lean in favor of simplicity when it comes to producing your email messages (a clean, easily readable
font, in black on a white background is sufficient for nearly all email messages).
Include an email signature with helpful contact information.
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Class discussion question: Where does email fall in your personal array of digital communication
technologies? Do you use email for most of your personal and academic communication, or do you rely
more on texting, messaging, and other digital formats? If you are not a heavy email user, would you be
able to adapt to working in a company that relies heavily on email?
Section 3: Messaging
Learning Objective 3: Identify the advantages and disadvantages of business messaging systems.
Note: In earlier editions, this section was divided into instant messaging and text messaging, but with the
widespread growth of messaging as a function within other systems (e.g., Facebook) and new messaging
platforms such as Slack, we now use the umbrella term “messaging” to cover all these capabilities.
Messaging is a diverse category of communication tools whose core focus is conversational exchanges.
In contrast to email, which is a digital alternative to printed memos and letters, messaging is best thought
of as a digital alternative to live voice conversation.
Messaging technologies include:
• Text messaging on mobile phones
• Conventional instant messaging (IM) systems
Messaging is a diverse category, and various systems offer a range of capabilities:
• Semipublic systems such as standard text messaging on mobile phones are open to anyone with
your phone number
• Private systems such as Slack are closed to anyone other than invited members.
Slack and other enterprise messaging systems are catching on with many businesses because they do a
better job of enabling and capturing vital communication flows.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Messaging
Advantages of messaging, particularly in comparison to email:
• It mimics voice conversation to a high degree, it is better suited to back-and-forth exchanges
than email and other digital formats.
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• With closed systems such as Slack, administrators can choose who is allowed to participate,
which means they can block out all outside distractions and threats.
Potential drawbacks of messaging:
• For real-time conversational exchange, users of all systems are at the mercy of other users’
typing speed and accuracy.
• Messaging systems vary widely in their levels of security and privacy, and public IM systems
Guidelines for Successful Messaging
Although messages are often conceived, written, and sent within a matter of seconds, you can still
apply key principles of the three-step process.
Planning instant messages: Plan conversations as you would an actual conversation.
Writing instant messages: The appropriate writing style for business IM is more formal.
Completing instant messages: Quickly scan each message before sending it, particularly when
you are communicating with customers and other outside stakeholders.
To use any messaging system effectively, pay attention to some important behavioral issues:
• Be thoughtful and courteous.
• Make yourself unavailable when you need to focus on other work.
• If you’re not on a secure system, don’t send confidential information.
• Be extremely careful about sending personal messages on business messaging systems.
Class discussion question: Have you ever carried on a messaging exchange or chat session with an
automated bot (such as asking for technical support on a company’s website)? Would you feel deceived if
you thought you were conversing with another human being but later found out it was an automated
chatbot? Why or why not?
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Section 4: Website Content
Learning Objective 4: Explain why organizing website content is so challenging, and explain the concept
of information architecture.
Organizing Website Content
The versatility of websites can be both a blessing and a curse for writers and other content developers.
It’s a blessing because a single web presence can serve multiple purposes for multiple audiences.
Versatility can also be curse, because it makes websites more difficult to plan and organize than
virtually any other type of business communication:
The web is a multidimensional medium, meaning readers move around in any order they please; there
often is no beginning, middle, or end.
When organizing a website, you need to anticipate and enable the various paths your readers will
want to follow.
Website designers use the term information architecture to describe the content structure, labeling,
and navigational flow of all the parts of a website. The information architecture shows:
• The vertical hierarchy of pages from the homepage down to the lower level
On simpler sites with few content categories, the information architecture is fairly straightforward,
including the recent trend toward one-page websites, in which all the content is presented on a single,
scrolling page (often used for mobile-friendly layouts).
To organize a site effectively, follow these tips:
• Brainstorm all the likely usage scenarios.
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• Create a map or other visual tool to help visualize and organize the information and
navigation.
• Make sure visitors can always find their way back to the top level of the site.
Drafting Website Content
Pay attention to six key aspects of web writing that will help make your web content more effective:
• Take special care to build trust with skeptical online readers. Make sure content is accurate,
current, complete, and authoritative. Indicate the date material was originally posted and
again when it is updated.
• Wherever you can, use the inverted pyramid style, in which you cover the most important
information briefly at first and then gradually reveal successive layers of detail.
Section 5: Podcasting
Learning Objective 5: Explain how to adapt the three-step writing process to podcasting.
Podcasting is the process of recording audio or video files and distributing them online.
Understanding the Business Applications of Podcasting
Podcasting applications include:
• Replacing existing audio and video messages, such as one-way teleconferences
Adapting the Three-Step Process for Successful Podcasting
The three-step writing process adapts nicely to podcasting.
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As you organize the content for a podcast, pay close attention to previews, transitions, and reviews;
these steering devices are especially vital in audio recordings.
Particularly for more formal podcasts, start by revising your script or thinking through your speaking
notes before you begin to record.
Editing podcasts is more work than editing texts, so the closer you can get to recording your podcasts
in one take, the more productive you’ll be.
HIGHLIGHT BOX: DIGITAL + SOCIAL + MOBILE: TODAY’S COMMUNICATION
ENVIRONMENT
Will Emoticons Give Your Career a Frowny Face?
1. Your reaction to job applicants who use emoticons in their email messages will depend on your own
2. Generational differences no doubt play a role in the emoticon issue, but organizational culture and
message circumstances are significant factors as well. Even many experienced professionals use
emoticons on some occasions, for examples, and there are many circumstances when emoticons would be
inappropriate, regardless of the age of the parties involved.
HIGHLIGHT BOX: THE FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION
Telepathic Communication
Telepathy is perhaps the most far-fetched of the emerging and potential tools for business
communication, and students probably won’t find any immediate business uses. However, research and
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COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES AT SLACK
Individual Challenge
This message presents two distinct challenges: give the team an answer to the dilemma surrounding the
product enhancement and restore team harmony in light of the accountant’s unpleasant and
unprofessional message (which the product manager or the accountant’s supervisor might want to address
privately). Let’s assume the product manager has decided to delay the next software update to give
engineering enough time to implement a feature that customers really want. The message could go
something like this:
I appreciate the animated discussion regarding the feature set we want to roll out in the next
Team Challenge
Student answers will vary, but teams should be able to come up with thoughtful lists of the issues that any
business team is likely to encounter when discussing complex scenarios with no obvious “best” solution.
A good way to approach this challenge would be to start from a description of the best-possible decision
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
7.1. Printed messages are usually preferable over electronic alternatives when you: (1) want to make a
7.2. Orientations don’t give away the key points in a collection of information but rather tell readers
where to find those points. Summaries, in contrast, can serve as miniature versions of a document
