It is important for businesses to consider every consumer when using new technologies to reach their market. Today, it is unusual for a business, corporation, or organization not to have a website since everyone is on the web in this day and age. Many businesses communicate with their shareholders, consumers, and clients via e-mail. They must focus on the rhetoric of these new technologies so as to not create an isolated, vulnerable consumer.
Those most likely to become vulnerable as a result of the widespread use of new technologies by businesses are “older people, those with a disability, people on low incomes, and people in rural areas” (Leaning 42). They are less likely to have access to a computer, or other new technology, to receive e-mail updates about the business or even visit the business’ website for general information. Businesses that solely offer online sales will not be able to reach this market easily.
“While the rhetoric surrounding the switchover is steeped in the discussion of opportunities, choice, and empowerment, it is also equally saturated with the discourse of the vulnerable consumer through the new forms of social exclusion such new technologies can bring” (Leaning). Although the switch to online businesses may seem beneficial for the consumer because of convenience purposes, not every consumer falls under this umbrella. Businesses need to be aware of this fact and take it into consideration. For example, it might be beneficial for a business to send updates and promotions via e-mail as well as via regular postal mail. Businesses simply switching over to the digital world are ignoring those isolated from the digital world and losing a large market as a result.
Source: Leaning, Marcus. Issues in Information and Media Literacy: Criticism, History, and Policy. Santa Rosa: Informing Science, 2009. Google Books. Web. 3 Mar. 2010. <http://books.google.com/books?id=vXDnJpKYjq0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=issues+in+information+and+media+literacy