Everybody knows that the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, the richness true-to-life images, and convenient ways to connect to mass media is here to stay. When Steve Jobs died five years ago, whom many considered the genius and driving force behind Apple, haunting shockwaves of disbelief reverberated worldwide. In his Los Angeles Times article of October 5, 2011, Hiltzik wrote “His legacies include making the human factor,” in terms of the look and feel of computerized communications devices, “an indispensable element of consumer electronics design, refining the distribution and display of digital content” to a level which pushed the envelope (Hiltzik, 1). The same article continues to note that Steve Jobs influence on entertainment and business mass-media communications has an impact that endured for a century. The article actually mentions Steve Jobs’ name alongside comparisons of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.
Mass media and communications today would be nothing, if not digital. Seemingly, every sphere of mass media communications is dominated by the use and presentation of a form of digital usage. In the well-known Symantec Company’s blog magazine, in the column Design@Symantec, Peterson stated “If you are a design professional, chances are one of the Apple computers was where you first learned your trade,” and attributed “one of the original men behind the design of Apple’s legendary products,” was Steve Jobs (Peterson, 1). This research report will discuss how Steve Jobs has been portrayed in the media, and how his products and overall influence have been used to impact mass media in terms of both design and new content structure.
Mass media has portrayed Steve Jobs in many ways, most notably as a business leadership model for success. In a Harvard Business Review article published in April of 2012, Isaacson wrote of Steve Jobs, “by the time he died, in October 2011, had built [Apple] into the world’s most valuable company,” and furthermore had transformed “seven industries” including “personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing” (Isaacson, 1). Obviously, mass media publishing, marketing, and presentation of interactive and digitally-rich content is the life’s blood of the communications industry today. The same article continued to remember Steve Jobs, and rank him with the importance of Walt Disney himself – as common knowledge dictates, was the legendary founder of all Disney products and most notably, as it pertains to mass media communications, its films.
The phenomena of social media is another arena that the mass media portrays Steve Jobs a champion of. In a CNN news publication, entitled ‘Steve Jobs and the Rise of Social Media,’ North credited Steve Jobs’ “iPhone that truly ushered in the age of social media and allowed us to engage with the Internet and visually interact with each other when not sitting in front of our computers at home” (North, 1). Mass media’s world of digital communications in the rubric of social media is literally connected to every country in the world, in news, entertainment, and all spheres of business and human industrial contact. Given the factor of the critical ways in which visual input defines the mass media market of today, in real and powerful ways Steve Jobs made social media possible. North continued, in the same CNN article and stated that Steve Jobs, as a businessman, not only “challenged himself,” but he did not believe “an innovator” should “think incrementally” (North, 1). In other words, when the pioneering Jobs had an idea or concept, he tackled the abstract conception first – then, later worried about how the engineering technology would create the actual product. In this way, Steve Jobs was portrayed throughout the media as an intensely driven, determined, and undaunted business leader. Furthermore, in commenting on Steve Jobs’ business acumen, Hiltzik wrote in The Los Angeles Times, that the “walled-garden approach to consumer applications is harshly at odds with the open architecture of the Web,” strongly reminding the audience that Jobs’ idea for downloadable music iTunes products, easily dominated 75 percent of the market economy in player-digital-music. Chris Morris, reporter at Variety Magazine in 2012 in an article entitled, “Apple-Polisher Left Mouse Mighty,” noted “the first anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death” marked the factor that “his ideas still resonate throughout two companies” – referring to Apple and Disney (Morris, 14). One key impact Steve Jobs had on mass media communications was the art of digital design itself, particularly in animation.
While it is true that the huge Disney Corporation conglomerate has economically carved an unprecedented global renown, in terms of its movies, branded images, shows, fantasy-parks, and products, the multi-national firm had hit a stalemate back in 2006. According to Johnson in his App Storm article of August 26, 2011, “Steve Jobs did not invent computer animation,” and in fact, “likely knew less about animation than any other venture he invested in,” – but the key is what Jobs envisioned “in Pixar a mass amount of potential” (Johnson, 1). Thus, boosting his personal fortune as a businessman was one certainly acknowledged, although Steve Jobs was not the sheer engineering genius behind the technology of visually dynamic digital design content, and animation.
Nevertheless, Steve Jobs acquired the LucasFilms very talented software/animation team. The bargain price tag, Johnson wrote, “of $5 million” later transformed into an amazing $7.4 billion” windfall when “he later sold the company” (Johnson, 1). The same article discussed how Steve Jobs really did not know what to do with Pixar, as a company, when he first bought it. But, as Johnson reported in App Storm in 2011, “By 1991, Pixar had made a stunning $26 million deal with Disney to create three feature-length films” (Johnson, 1). Thus, history records that Pixar had a massive impact on digitally animation of movies, and forever altered a simple computer-niche industry into a major-league several-billion-dollar industry of visually vibrant media images. Also, in her CNN news article of October 7, 2011, North hinted that it was doubtful that Twitter would have become the mass media rage, were it not for Steve Jobs ‘iPhone – and to this end wrote “without the iPhone making it possible to for us to view content, upload photos and interact from any location” all over the world, Twitter may not “have become so dominant” as a communications tool (North, 1). Additionally, it is a fact that reputable global television news productions use Twitter, when reporting important political events – such as the 2013 coup in Egypt, and the Iraqi War.
Many people claim that Steve Jobs’ contributions to mass media and digital design influential impact have gone unappreciated, or underestimated. In chapter 9 of her book entitled, Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media, by Shirley Biagi, founder of a top San Francisco design studio, Gadi Amit wrote of Steve Jobs, that “Most people underestimate has grandeur and his greatness,” because, “They think it’s about design,” when “it’s beyond design,” and “completely holistic, and it’s dogmatic” (Biagi, 199). The successful designer continued to deem the work and impact of Steve Jobs as prolific in terms of high-quality output in what he accomplished, and that his contributions were poetic in its overall influence on the culture. To back up his claims, in Biagi’s book Gadi Amit elaborated to explain that “Steve was cut from a completely different cloth from most business leaders. He was not a number-crunching guy; he was not a technologist,” but rather a cultural visionary leader, and “he drove Apple from that perspective” (Biagi, 191). The overarching impact Steve Jobs had in the world seems to have displayed in three major areas: (1) How he was portrayed in the media, (2) How his products/business-inventions have been used in mass media communication, and (3) How iPhone brought new content to life in the digital domain. They say that hindsight presents the clearest vision of all.
Therefore, it seems that since the death of Steve Jobs, commentators have collected myriad thoughts about the man personally, business-wise, and his impact on mass media in concrete ways such as demonstrated on the outcome of the Disney Company’s success. In his Variety article of October 2012, Chris Morris wrote “In the longer term, everything depends on the teams that Jobs helped assemble at Apple and Pixar, and on the Disney honchos” (Morris, 14). In other words, the idea is that Steve Jobs not only had an impact on the numerous digital media outlets, artistic design, and animation outcomes, but obviously he had to possess the ability to convince company corporation heads to essentially take a risk, by venturing into what was then, a completely un-blazed trail in media landscape. Morris explained in this same Variety article, that Jobs had to convincingly penetrate and probe, to a degree “Disney’s leadership position in digital media” (Morris, 14). By doing so, Steve Jobs has wielded a collectively integrative influence on digital media, with the introduction of his Apple products such as iTunes, and the iPhone.
The movie industry business is an entirely other huge horizon that Steve Jobs’ impact touched, in terms of the mass media communications frontier. It is credible that Steve Jobs alone is responsible, in leadership terms, for what Barton Crockett is recorded by Morris as stating that “Disney is front and center in the conversation about where electronic distribution of media is going” (Morris, 14). In a cogent analysis, one may liken the situation to a snowball effect in terms of Steve Jobs’ visionary dedication and passion. Also, the greatness of Steve Jobs did not mean he was always easy to get along with, or a ‘go-along-to-get-along’ kind of guy. In a contributing statement to Biagi’s book, Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media, Mr. Norman said “He was really unique, brilliant, demanding and difficult,” and that “Like him or not, it doesn’t matter; he redefined the music industry, the cell phone industry, computers and animation,” wrapping up final thoughts with, “You cannot deny the impact he had on the company, the industry and our culture” (Biagi, 199). At the end of the day, it is hard to forget the massive worldwide outpouring of sorrow many displayed at the news of the death of Steve Jobs.
Works Cited
Biagi, Shirley. Media/impact: An Introduction to Mass Media. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012-2013 (update). Print.
Hiltzik, Michael. “Steve Jobs: More than a turnaround artist.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times Newspaper, 5 Oct. 2011. Web. 1 May 2016.
Isaacson, Walter. “The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs.” Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review Mag., April 2012. Web. 1 May 2016.
Johnson, Joshua. “5 Industries that Steve Jobs Helped Change Forever.” Mac.Appstorm. App Storm Mag., 26 Aug. 2011. Web. 1 May 2016.
Morris, Chris. “Apple-Polisher Left Mouse Mighty.” Variety 428.8 (2012): 14. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 1 May 2016.
North, Karen. “Steve Jobs and the Rise of Social Media.” CNN. CNN – Cable News Network online Mag., 7 Oct. 2011. Web. 1 May 2016.
Peterson, Vicky. “How Steve Jobs Influenced the Modern World of Digital Design.” Symantec. Design@Symantec: Symantec Official Blog Mag., 8 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 May 2016.
