IMAB sequence model version 0.1

I have developed a simple version 0.1 sequential model called IMAB; Identity – Mentality – Attitude – Behaviour. I use it to explain the sequences (steps) that lead to a certain behaviour. I believe it starts with giving meaning to oneself and the world; Identity. Identity is often described as ‘sameness’. Being the same with the outside world (whatever it is: a person, an object, an experience) leads to a certain mentality (the core of my research). In my opinion, mentality can be described as habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations. Thus mentality is about response to the situation one is in. In the core, mentality is about interpretation, based on the meanings you give to you in relation to the outside world. Perhaps re-reading ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ may be of use. Mentality at its turn leads to a certain attitude: a mental, feeling or emotional position with/toward a fact or state. So attitude is the result of the former two sequences. It is a position taken that will lead to a certain behaviour. Behaviour is the the manner of conducting oneself and/or the response of an individual, group, or species to its environment. Thus behaviour is the acting of persons based on taken positions (or feelings or emotions). The IMAB model is no more than a visualization of this process.

Click the picture for a full size and readable jpg.

Research on mentality approaches. Let the show begin

The reason for not having published more over the last weeks is because I have had a very tight time schedule. Now, this week, we have a small vacation. I can proudly say that we have officially started the research program on mentality approachesabout three weeks ago. With we, I mean my students Noora Al-Ani (Finland), Heli Kleemola (Finland), Masoud Banbersta (Iran) as team ‘Jumpers’ and Niniane Veldhoen (Netherlands) and Matthijs Rotte (Netherlands) as team ‘Doves’ and me. Of course, the program will be tutored by Harry van Vliet and undoubtedly I will get support from my fellows. So, what do we mean by mentality approach?

My definition of mentality is: A habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations[1]. If this is true – the Jumpers and Doves are currently conducting desk research on definitions and scopes of mentality – a mentality approach would be business model(s) to target audiences based on the mentality (mentalities) of consumers. So, basically, this research theme is about new target audience segmentation models. 

The Jumpers (don’t ask me why they are called as such but Jump is the name of a special program in the faculty’s ICM, International Communication and Media) focus on cultural differences in mentality approaches of Amnesty International in Finland and The Netherlands. This team will also study the mentality approaches of the Eurovision Song Contest (o lordy lord). The key question is: Do these institutions use mentality approaches and if yes, what are they and can we determine the cultural differences? 

The Doves will research the SoV – Share of Voice – in primarily spontaneous use of the brand name Dove (personal care products by Unilever) and the sentiment of use in social media. Again, we are looking for mentality issues in SoV (see entry about Brand to Community).  I must say that I am proud to conduct this research (as part of a larger research with Saxxion University and various non-educational institutions) and assist the students in their themes.

As always, if you have any suggestions regarding this research, please tell them. So, let the show begin. I’ll keep you posted.

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[1] Source: wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

CRTC imposes cross-media ownership restrictions

I came across this article on cbc.ca, the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Apparently there is a lot of discussion over there about crossmedia ownership. I am interested in this topic. As we see a shift from company-controlled customer ownership to empowered prosumers, I wonder if the traditional media industry can wants to find answers on what they may call the behaviour of rebellious bunch of their consumers. As people get i nto user generated content provision more and more and using their own media, the media industry may ask itself when their ‘ownership’ is still a valid concept. Current shiftings sure raise the question of hegonomy. Here’s the introduction (CRTC is Canada‘s regulator for telecoms, radio and television services). The CRTC has brought in new regulations to restrict cross-media ownership as a way of ensuring a diversity of editorial voices in the same market.The broadcast regulator said on Tuesday that, in future, a person or entity will be permitted to control only two of the three types of media outlets — radio, TV, or newspapers — in a single market.In other words, a media group that already owned a local radio station and a local television station would likely have to sell one of those broadcast outlets if it wanted to buy a local newspaper in the same market.The CRTC also said it would impose limits on the ownership of broadcasting licences so that one party would not control more than 45 per cent of the total television audience share as a result of a merger or acquisition.It also said it would not approve transactions between cable or satellite delivery providers that would allow one entity to effectively control the delivery of programming in a market.That would prevent the country’s two main satellite TV distributors — Bell ExpressVu and Star Choice — from merging.

Read more at CBC’s page.

 

Emergence emerging

The other day I had an interesting talk with Erik Hekman about emergence. Steven Johnson wrote a good book on the topic and one of the examples he uses is ant colonies. There is no hierarchy in ant colonies. The queen is only there to lay eggs, there are no managers and no visionaries or thought leaders. Yet, ant colonies can exist up to 15 years. Ants communicate by means of chemicals and have a simple (yet effective) communication system. In such colonies, things happen orderly. Before we talked, Erik and I listened to a speaker on the very same topic. He was trying to get our students interested to join in a project on human emergence. The crux in his talk was that he thinks we can simplify human life to the limited rules of ant colonies.
Emergence is an interesting topic and my curiosity is huge. I believe that there are human emergent systems in environments such as social media and social networks but I research has been done so far.
An interesting research question is if and how we can identify emergence (or self regulation) of people; what are the rules of communication and how important is hierarchy in groups? Another one is: are we shifting from a feudal system to an emergent one?
Personally I believe that emergence is emerging and we are shifting our paradigms but it may take a while.