Google Search Engine: Ethnography Of Technology In Everyday Life

Google Search Engine: Ethnography of Technology in Everyday Life

This project will be completed in one paper:

Technology in Context: Producers and Production 

Shift your focus to the history and development of your artefact. Study the scholarly works and answer questions such as: How is your (or your family members', co-workers' or others') use of the Google Search Engine technology affected by the character of its production, distribution, and marketing? 

Your paper should frame your empirical findings and historical research with a thoughtful application of the SCOT theoretical model and related concepts introduced in the course, such as relevant social groups (RSGs), interpretative flexibility, rhetorical closure, redefinition of the problem closure, and technological frame.

Effects of Google search engine in production, distribution and marketing

Technology has been associated to many changes in the line of production and consumption of goods and services. Since technology came into existence, radical changes have been underway with many changes happening over a short period of time (Murthy, 2008). In this regard, it would be accurate to assert that, technology has been shaping human life and its development follows a structured and predefined structure. It does not have any social or political issues associated with it. Technology use has been attributed to changes in human life, which makes it socially constructed as it is human life that shapes technology. In the analysis of technology and its effect in the society, Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework would be considered. It is apparent that, Google search has had advance effects on almost all people lives. In today’s world, technology consumption is in almost all spheres of life ranging from communication, business operations and marketing among others (Higgins, Xiao & Katsipataki, 2012). In this regard, Google search has been widely used in several sectors such as research, production, distribution and marketing of goods and services.

There is no doubt that Google search engine has been and still being used in almost all areas of business operations. The interpretative flexibility is one of the SCOT model frameworks that focuses on flexibility of various social groups linked to a particular technology brand (Connaway, Lanclos & Hood, 2013). Despite the existence of correlation between interpretative flexibility and relevant social groups, the latter is different. It views both technology and design concepts as open processes which are different in regard to social circumstances put in place. Google search engine users have been changing with technology needs for different reasons. In this case, interpretative technology can be regarded as meaning Google search users’ accord to technology in place. Since its inception into human life, Google search engine has been changing to align itself to security policy requirements and technology enhancements. As these changes have been taking place, its users have been responsive and flexible enough to accept any technological change. Since adoption of Google search technology, organizations and other users in production and marketing sector have taken advantage of its existence to enhance their marketing strategies (Bughin et al., 2011). Organizations are using Google search engine to promote different product brands because it is believed to be a platform with highest number of users, hence changing how production and marketing approach. A good example can be deduced from companies like Apple and Microsoft which use search engine to promote and sale its products across the globe. On the same note, Google maps are can be used to monitor which market sector and part of world has been highest consumer of specific goods. This helps organization focus on market segment which seems more profitable.    

Consumption of any product or service is highly linked to existence of some Relevant Social Groups (RSGs). Technology users can be categorized into users and non-users. According to Cantallops, Cardona & Matarredonda (2013), users’ make use of technology in several ways while non-users have a negative perspective on Google search technology. This SCOT component borrows its operational concepts from market segmentation which assumes consumption of a certain brand can be associated with social groups. Change in Google search engine capability and performance should consider effects to be experienced by different group of users, either organizations or individual users in the marketing sector. Various Google search engine users would be affected depending on how they use subject technology. Google search engine has and continue to be in use by various organizations for different purposes such as research and delivery of products and services. A good example can be deduced from distribution of some goods and services via Gmail. With help of Google search engine, users are able to sale, purchase and deliver some products such as software electronically. The performance of the engine as required by different users’ results to automatic creation of RSGs. Important to note is that, some Google search engine users’ run business processes that are resource intensive (Ershov, 2016). In such a case, performance of the engine should be highly considered. Performance of the engine has affected some organization’s production capability. Increased performance results to direct increase in technology related service delivery such as internet service providers. Google search engine performance affects production in a direct manner. Poor engine performance translates to low production from RSGs using it for production purpose and vice versa on high performance.   

Relevant Social Groups and the impact of performance of the engine

The next aspect in SCOT framework would be rhetorical closure of the subject technology. This has been mainly experienced in cases where a certain product does not meet required specification and does not offer desired functionality (Van-Dijck, 2010). Mainly, rhetorical closure has been attributed to technology being ineffective which in turn results to emergence of substitute products or services. In this regard, there have been no cases of Google search engine closure as its services have been outstanding. Google search engine interpretative flexibility has been quite good and almost all RSGs have been responding positively to any change in technology adopted. To make the engine more reliable, every change has been done proactively with aim of benefiting all its users. Production industry relies heavily on search engine for research to improve its product quality, service delivery and measure customer responsiveness. In today’s market, research has been shifting from physical data collection to remote based. In this regard, Google engine is being used for research by sending out data collection tools such as questionnaire as well as receive feedback from respondents. Through use of Google search engine, the cost of conducting research has been reduced greatly making it easier to produce high quality products with low cost (Yannopoulos, 2011). As a result, the cost of producing related product or service has gone down substantially. Therefore, with ease in promoting organizational product through use of search engine, it would be quite impossible to have rhetorical closure of such an important technology. Before innovation of Google search engine, online research and promotion of products could not be conducted.  

Conclusion

Technological advancements have been changing how human being has been undertaking several activities such as production, distribution and marketing. Technology effects on several sectors of business process have been analyzed in respect to SCOT framework. It has been used as a guide in analyzing how goggle search engine has been undergoing development in order to remain simple, effective and robust. The product should focus on interpretative flexibility, rhetorical closure and RSGs. Without Google search engine technology, the internet that everyone is proud of could not have such capability. It has offered both producers and consumers an opportunity to interact without much restriction. Producers are able to sell from any part of the world while consumer is able to choose from a variety of markets available. Similarly, distributing of goods and services has been made much easier through use of Google search engine.

References

Bughin, J., Corb, L., Manyika, J., Nottebohm, O., Chui, M., de Muller Barbat, B., & Said, R. (2011).The impact of Internet technologies: Search. High Tech Practice. McKinsey & Company. https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/22890/thesis_com_2016_sehuhula_mooket si_bojelo_ester.pdf?sequence=1

Cantallops, A. S., Cardona, J. R., & Matarredonda, M. G. (2013). The impact of search engines on the hotel distribution value chain. Redmarka: revista académica de marketing aplicado, (10), 6. https://cienciared.com.ar/ra/usr/39/1440/redmarka_n10_v2pp19_54.pdf

Connaway, L. S., Lanclos, D., & Hood, E. M. (2013). “I Find Google a lot Easier than Going to the Library Website.” Imagine Ways to Innovate and Inspire Students to Use the Academic Library. In Proceedings of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) 2013 conference, (pp. 10-13).  https://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/201 3/papers/Connaway_Google.pdf

Ershov, D. (2016). The effect of consumer search costs on entry and quality in the mobile app market. Mimeo, University of Toronto. https://www.law.northwestern.edu/research- faculty/searlecenter/events/internet/documents/Ershov_Consumer_Search.pdf

Higgins, S., Xiao, Z., & Katsipataki, M. (2012). The impact of digital technology on learning: A summary for the education endowment foundation. Durham, UK: Education Endowment Foundation and Durham University. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/The_Impact_of_ Digital_Technologies_on_Learning_(2012).pdf

Murthy, D. (2008). Digital ethnography: An examination of the use of new technologies for social research. Sociology, 42(5), 837-855. https://octavioislas.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/digital-etnography-sociology-sept- 2008.pdf

Van Dijck, J. (2010). Search engines and the production of academic knowledge. International journal of cultural studies, 13(6), 574-592.  https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/958061/90423_Search_engines_and_academic_knowledge.IJ CS.pdf

Yannopoulos, P. (2011). Impact of the Internet on marketing strategy formulation. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(18).  https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0ce5/c799898b4696e24518ba27e0f457f3e1df19.pdf