Effect Of Social Media Sites In Consumer Behaviour Marketing Essay

Effect Of Social Media Sites In Consumer Behaviour Marketing Essay The new age internet sites provided online properties to allow people to communicate with each other, unlike dead internet sites, and hence create meaningful relationships over a period of time. It may be on the ground of hobby or business, it can be anything. In the online world a company can brand itself easily and without gigantic marketing budget, through videos, discussion groups/massage boards, blogs. Social marketing is used successfully and strategically by numerous marketers to increase the appeal of their business. It is easier to find out business minded people interested in similar niche in the online world. To spruce up their network of friends with common interests successful entrepreneurs also use social networking sites, they share ideas, exchange information and in the long run establish relationships and take it to the next level then promote by becoming partners or referring someone interested in the venture. The attributes for the Social Media sites in Influencing Consumer Behaviour of innovation in models and development; and market efficiency. In a development, the amount of information available is already vast and increasing daily. The goal of our paper is to investigate the paramaters effecting Social Media sites in Influencing Consumer Behaviour. The effect of social media sites was measured by applying Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). It uses the forecasting attributes in the proposed Consumer Behaviour model to ascertain the relative importance of the processes towards a successful Social networking sites implementation. This paper discusses the comparisons for the successful advertisements on websites or social networking sites. It also considers Social Responsiveness, Information Search, Time Spent, Peer Group Influence and Satisfaction as a parameter to see the influence of Consumer. It calculates the priority by using the Analytical Hierarchal Process Keywords: successful advertisements, Analytical Hierarchal Process, Consumer Behaviour Introduction A social networking service is an online service which is defined as an explaining the interest of practice of expanding the number of ones business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals. Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information This explains the idea of concept that any two people on the planet could make contact through a chain of no more than five intermediaries.. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people. While it could be said that email and websites have most of the essential elements of social network services. Social networking is based on 6 degree concept which explains social networking establishes interconnected Internet communities (sometimes known as personal networks) that helps people to make contacts that would be good for them to know. In general, heres how it works: you join one of the sites and invite people you know to join as well; those people invite their contacts t o join, who in turn invite their contacts to join, and the process repeats for each person. In theory, any individual can make contact through anyone they have a connection to any of people with a person and so on. Along with other form of advertising and promotion, the social networking sites also have been always the leading ideas to promote business. The purpose of the Online marketers is seriously to gain output through social networking slowly and steadily not through a business which creates through its own brand but also can create a lot of additional traffic, which would have been difficult or impossible to attain. In the initial stages the business may be slow, but latterly can build a solid foundation for a brand to fix properly through social online marketing, considered as great free advertising tool. By responding to the queries and questions with analytical insights raised by members in the niche massage boards or forums, a company appoints spokesperson can let know other members of the group about its brand and thus enable the mouth publicity to spread further. Networking is just like the next buzzword these days, but it was actually the oldest form of communication in this ancie nt world. The popularity of networking websites is spreading all over the Internet. These sites can be used as marketing tools in addition to the obvious use to make new friends. They can help increase website traffic by sending tons of traffic to your website and for an added bonus; they can also improve your search engine ranking.There are certainly some dos and donts that one must abide by to avoid criticality as Social Networking sites do not have strict rules for joiners. To understand the dos and donts that are required to follow in social networking in for promotion, a set of steps need to be folllowed in order to capture your target segment. A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services. Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people. While it could be said that email and websites have most of the essential elements of social network services, the idea of proprietary encapsulated services has gained popular uptake recently.The main types of social networking services are those which contain category divisions (such as former school-year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages) and a recommendation system linked to trust. There have been some attempts to standardize these services to avoid the ne ed to duplicate entries of friends and interests, but this has led to some concerns about privacy.Though there are several social networks that are flourishing on the internet today, but the flourishing 3 websites in todays world are Face book, Linked in, twitter for the following important reasons reach , prominence, uniqueness,. purpose, customizability, and data personal experience. Face-book has come as a clear leader among all the social networking sites. According to the State of the Mobile Web report conducted by Opera Software, Facebook is also the second most popular site visited by Opera Mini users from India. Indians have shown a major transformation in usage patterns, Traditionally Indians are known to spend their time on search and email related activities on the mobile web but with the boom in the handheld-devices market. Today, availability of content and ease of access have catapulted a range of content-rich portals to rise up in the most visited domains list. According to the report, Twitter is the second largest social network site in the world with 300+ million active users worldwide. Its motive is to follow your interests, its service type is micro blogging. Its revenue is about $140million as per 2010.Its based on the principle of followers for a celebrity and total number of tweets. 57% of all Indian Twitter users have joined the platform in l ess than a year! With such quick rise in popularity and with masses coming into fold, brands and advertisers are have to quickly adapt to the ever changing dynamics of this medium.LinkedIn stands for its professional status in social networking. Its the best of its kind. Globally it has 135+ million active users. Revenue is around $121millions. LinkedIn is very oriented toward your professional network, it looks like the most professional looking of all the social networking services, and not your broader personal network. LinkedIn allows members to look for jobs, seeking out experts in a particular area, or to make contact with other professionals through a chain of trusted connections.LinkedIn Advertisements is a self-service advertising solution that allows you to create and place text advertisements on prominent pages on LinkedIn. Recently form the past some years, marketing has brought increased growth in the social networking phenomenon. Face book or Twitter have became a key part of a number of people in their daily routine. Now-a-days various Organizations consider these social media sites as a publicity vehicle of rich potential. Indeed, various companies have already enjoyed exceptionally large sales boosts as a direct consequence of endorsement from social media sites, blogs or other online communication channels. One of the most common tendencies of people making purchase decisions is by an advice from their friends. Indeed, word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendation from friends and significantly have long been recognized as a powerful weapon in any marketers armory. On that consequence, it is sensible to assume that the suggestions which emerge from friends in social media sites might have influence, which is similar to a conventional WOM recommendation. In todays world there are many Social Networking Sites in existence on the World Wide Web (WWW).   The most popular ones for business use are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the famous of social networking sites. These sites allow users to create profiles and add people as friend, bring people with similar interests together and also allow them to create connections to construct a social network. A social network consists of all the people friends, family and others with whom one shares a social relationship.Advertising on Social Networking Sites can be low cost. Business and organizations are focusing on the cost reduction in the current global economic scenario. Hence, this type of advertising is a highly useful strategy in this economic situation.   To compare with the conventional advertising, the Social Network Advertising seems to require time to establish the effective profile and posts, and more time to actually implement these techniques on a regular basis, b ut it have low costs for the business. Social sites are not just for the company to broadcast information for consumers, but for consumers to participate in open free conversations with these companies by posting, commenting and following their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts or blogs. Facebook and Twitter provide quick updates information and company changes functions to users and however for more engaging conversation blogs are generally used to provide more information to their audience and allow for comments and questions. Jet star Company is one of an example of using social networks to promote their company. Social Network advertising is taking advantages of reduced cost, increased sales and the customer interaction. It is important that businesses build online platform to prevent the negative effect and guarantee and maintain their Social Network as it may be damage the reputation and worth of the brand.   Social media is a great advantage to companies as it allows them to interact with people at the level that they are on, even it is through Twitter, Face book, YouTube or blogs. This involvement with their customers helps businesses to increase sales, allows the customer to be part of the brand or simply as a customer service tool. Thus, the importance of maintaining a social media plan is to ensure customers are kept in active. There would have certain disadvantages of using the Social Network, like, people share negative comments with business, though not represented to affect companies. In another way to say, it is advantage for companies to provide opportunities to improve their weakness and attract customers participation. Complaint or negative feedbacks can also arise from unsatisfied customers and quickly spread across the social sites. While social networks open the company up to negative feedback and comments, it is much better for them to be in the space so they have a chance to reply back and be heard. One of the sure concern of the Companies, and allows companies to participate with their customers and listen to their positions in the Social Network. In case of the companies without the social media sites, those customers would complain that they were not getting responses from the company, therefore company needs to set up this communication and get the root of a problem is the most crucial benefit company using social media (Burson-Marsteller, 2010). As more people are spending more time online as well as social networking sites, it indicates there are advantages for businesses to be participating in this Social Network. According to the data graph, 79% of businesses are already using some form of social networking for their business allowing them to essentially promote their brand or product to increase sales. As with the Blendtec example, a low cost effective YouTube campaign increased their sales five times (Mashable, 2009). My Starbucks Idea the Starbucks an example, which showed that companies advantage from introducing the customer into their business and building their engagement to make them feel like they are part of the businesses and providing opinions for improvement. This engagement works two ways with the consumer feeling loyalty to the brand as they are part of the company itself.When the business encourages to create Social Networking marketing or advertising, they need to organize and consider all aspects of Soci al Networking, if they have sufficient prepare of the plan or organization, it is possible to control any circumstances when it comes, in case of the negative feedbacks or complaint, companies can make improvements or respond immediately and become a part of customer service to solve and help customers in the fastest way. Overall, probably the strongest advantage of social networking in business is because of the consumer. Allowing a customer to have the opportunity to receive customer service or have realized their concerns in short time to meet their needs for instant satisfaction. Traditional advertising have became of lower importance as via social media we have gained greater access to what our friends think. People more emphasize on their experiences and their friends experience with brands and products than on advertisements. Thus, the concern should be on, to understand the basic behavior of people when it comes to decision making. In Advertising on the Brain it states, people have an emotional and a physical reaction, before engaging in rational thought. In other words, the process goes like, feel then react and then think. Most advertising fails to understand actions which are succeeded by positive emotions. If some kind of negative emotion are felt which may be intentional or not, then the consumer turns negative towards the brand/product.Marketers have to be intelligent towards the emotional reactions that they create, general in creating positive emotional reactions, and make it easy for people to try their brand/product, thus solidifying the positiv e emotion that makes them share about their experience with others hence there is rise of engagement advertising. In Charting a Shift from Communications to Engagements it says, The new marketing is about creating 360à ¢Ã‚ Ã‚ ° brand experiences, not messaging. Consumers should buy into to your brands ideas, not just your product. Instead of defining Reasons To Believe, there is a need to define Reasons To Be. Brands no longer are contained in any communication or campaign, but rather is understood through its many touch-points. positive touch-points should b created, and positive ROI should also b created. Thus, creating multiple positive touch-points requires a creative mind, here Marketers have to be stay strong and willing to risk failure, and ideally allow a minimum of three months to test any marketing/advertising ideas to see what works. The more we can incorporate social technology into real-life events, the more people get excited and curious about it. Marketers should be restless to incorporate promotion of art into their work. After all, art creates positive emotion, which begets action. Consumer Buying Behaviour Many decisions are being made by the consumers daily. What consumers buy where they buy, how and how much they buy, when they buy, and why they buy are the main concern of big companies to research on, they need to know about consumers buying decisions. Actual consumer purchases can be studied by the Marketers to find out what they buy, where, and how much. The answers are often locked deep within the consumers head hence learning about the whys of consumer buying behavior is a bit difficult.The main focus of the marketers is on the question that: How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts the company might use? The company that really understands how consumers will respond to different product features, prices, and advertising appeals has a great advantage over its competitors. The starting point is the stimulus-response model of buyer behavior.Marketers have to understand a lot before marketing strategies can be developed. People using consumer markets buy goods and serv ices for personal consumption. The varied consumers differ tremendously with age, income, education, tastes, and other factors. The buyers characteristics and by the buyers decision process influences the consumer behavior. Buyer characteristics include four major factors: cultural, social, personal, and psychological. Similarly, we can say that following factors can influence the Buying decision of the buyer are a. Cultural, Social, Personal,. Psychological Consumers making buying decisions mainly affect buyer. The buyer decision process consists of five stages:  need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision,  and  post purchase  behavior.  Clearly, the buying process starts long before and after the actual purchase.The entire buying process should be focused by the marketers rather than just the purchase decision which implies that consumers pass through all five stages with every purchase. Yet, in more routine purchases, consumers often skip or reverse some of these stages. A woman buying her regular brand of toothpaste would recognize the need and go right to the purchase decision, skipping information search and evaluation. Thus, we use the model in Figure because it shows all the considerations that arise when a consumer faces a new and complex purchase situation.The buyer recognizes a problem or need which is the starting of the buying process, known as need recognition. The buyer re cognizes a difference between his or her  actual  item and some  desired  item. The need can be triggered by  internal stimuli when one of the persons normal needs- hunger, thirst- raises to a level high enough to develop its craving. A need can also be triggered by  external stimuli.  At this stage, the   Ã‚  marketer need to thoroughly research consumers to find out what kinds of needs or problems arise, what brought them about, and how they can manage with the consumer related to the particular product. By gathering such information, the marketer identifies the factors that most often trigger interest in the product and can develop marketing programs that involve these factors. The emerging new influencer community is wielding significant power over the perceptions of brands and companies, the influencers to communicate are largely driven by the rapid expansion of social media channels through. The new some-bodies which were the nobodies of the past are demanding the attention of communication professionals continuous seeking engagement with targeted consumers throughout the various channels of the social web. A new level of activism is witnessed by Corporate management from an influential constituency rarely heard from in the past ordinary consumers. A large share of voice benefits in the market are gained by many of these new consumer influencers. It is due to the impact of the internet, and the technologies that bring together people who share common interests, Consumers are impacting brand equity as never before. This unnerves corporate marketing practitioners with high responsibility for brand management. To control the brand conversation, Companies feel the pressure. They may not currently have a voice in the social media space. However, establishing a presence on Twitter or Facebook without the due diligence required to make the effort worthwhile will produce few worthwhile results. Simply due to acquiring a presence on these sites for the sake of maintaining control over the brand discussion for providing the illusion of taking action which sometimes feels like taking control. Four out of five internet users visit a social network site on a monthly basis, with Facebook and Twitter causing much growth in the industry, and six out of seven US internet users now viewing online video content in a month (Radwanick, 2010). LITERATURE REVIEW Social media in marketing is a communication tool that makes the companies access to people who are interested in their product and makes it aware to people who are not aware of it. It is used as a mechanism to create a personality in a brand and earn relations with people around which helps them achieve customer loyalty with increased repeat purchases . social media is so different that it is used for the interest and the needs of the business. 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2010 says, 56% marketers use social media for 6 hours and sometimes more. The most sought after tools in social media for marketing purpose is twitter, LinkedIn, face book and blogs. While 81% plan to increase usage of blogs , 76% of whole marketers are preferring to spend at least 4 hours for advertising efforts on social media. Presently it has become extremely essential to build good consumer base, and to increase there contribution in decision making. According to Soft pedia, in US 86% of online retailers had a face book page which can increase up to 99%. 65% of these retailers are pretty active on twitter and 26% of them are planning to use twitter for plans. Social media gives marketers a voice and a way to communicate with peers, customers and potential consumers. It personalizes the brand and helps you to spread the message in a relaxed and conversational way. As far as face book is concerned 700 thousand retailers already have a face book page and around 80 thousand web portals are currently properly connected via face book.Social media provides a platform to marketers to pass on there message and idea to customers and potential customers. It customizes the brand and gives them an edge in connecting with masses. Beverage companies, automobile companies, pastry shops use social media . Pepsi ,Coke, Nokia efficiently use social media for completing there targets. involved companies in social media are Absolut Vodka have a top bartender fan page on face book,BMW a Ramp enfest Page for fans for promotion of 1-Series Road Trip.,Dunkin Donuts a micro blogging Twitter account and using it valuably,General Motors utilize online equity to reach to there consumers. Recently, marketing through social media has become an outreach activity to easily connect with customers by developing awareness of brands .though there is a shift in the trends as now its affecting sales so there is a mindset to develop a channel that is committed in engaging with the masses. As analyzed by Wet paint and Altimeter engagementdb.com, we have concluded that most of the successful companies are maintaining 7 or more accounts on social media tools or channels.Internet gives businesses with lots of methods for communicating brand to customers. The most common form is banner advertisements used for promoting opportunities on internet. Banner activities are just like print media with an added facility of clicking on banner and directly reaching to advertisement. It can do two things basically for the marketer. A visitor surfing through publishers website will look at banner ad . therefore a banner ad will help them get a customer. Actual success of banner ad is when the v isitor buys the product. Failure of clicking, advertisers think that a visitor will see the banner ad and remember it in their heads. This means the visitor pays attention to the content of a banner ad and decides to visit the site in the future, or it means that the visitor will glance on the ad but is clear and have knowledge of the product or service offered. This second effect of advertising is known as branding. Product Class congruity between a banner advertisement and website should have a there is a direct effect on consumers mind towards the website based on banner advertisement and the website considering the product class congruity. customers attitude towards brand is very essential in understanding there purchase decisions. attitude toward brand is a feeling which can be evaluate consumers hold to a specific brand .going by the traditional view made up of personal beliefs of the attitudinal objects, brand attitude gets effected by advertisements. In addition to this there is attitude towards the website. Corporate Web sites offer a variety of services such as direct selling, projecting corporate image, providing product information, generating qualified leads, dispensing electronic coupons, and handling a variety of post purchase tasks (Berthon et al., 1996; Hoffman and Novak, 1996). A lot of online traffic is generated by compan ies through active promotion of the address uniform resource locator (URL) with an online registration with search engines, hyper textual links with other Web sites and in major cases paid banner advertisements on other Web sites. This method is of huge concern now a days. Like a TV, radio or print advertisement tells the audience to call an 800 number or direct mail has the receiver mail in a reply, a banner takes the visitor to the advertisers page. when not clicked, advertisement banners definitely impacts the attitude of the visitor and help build the brands product and services offered by marketer (Elliott, 1996). banner advertisements increase the popularity. Web advertisers are dicey regarding the cost per thousand (CPM) pricing model based on impressions, that insist on payment for results or click throughs. Advertisers need to know that who is clicking and what are the reasons behind it.. Answering to this will help businesses to incorporate websites system into there marketing plans and result in better decisions based on advertising response modeling. A banner ad can be successful in many ways. methods to judge and evaluate banner ads are as follow a) Clicks/Click-throughs: It is basically the number of clicks made on that banner and judged on the basis of cost per clicks .b) Page views:, this is the number of times page has been viewed from the server Also called page impressions. It gives an idea that how many people could have seen the banner ad. though it does not give proper view of the visitors and branding campaign. The most popular way to sell banner ad space is cost per thousand impressions. c) Click-through rate (CTR): It is a ratio of page views to clicks and generally expressed as a percentage of people who viewed the page and actually click through to banner ad.. The typi cal click-through-rate is 1 percent.d) Cost per sale: This helps evaluate the amount of expenses made on getting one sale. Different means are used for this purpose. Internet cookies are used which allows to combine the actual sale made and how customer reached the site. Improving banner click-through rates are essential for the marketer and the Web site doing the advertising. As banners are priced according to click-through rates, everyone works to improve click-through rates. click-through rates will advertiser understand which Web site offers the required options. Click-through rates are affected by various factors generally ranging from 2% onwards. animation , cryptic messages , posing questions are methods to improve and understand response rates, it also includes call to action phrases, color and animation, with a sense of urgency tending to decrease response rates (Double Click and I/PRO, 1996).another way to improve response rates is targeting advertisement banners based on website requirements. banner s response rate declines due to excessive exposure, with research indicating that banner (DoubleClick and I/PRO, 1996; Modahl and MacQuiddy, 1996).According to Ofcom research most of the children have a profile on a social networking site on in ternet. The report shows that how important have social networking sites become for Briton people. 49% of internet users are in the age group of 8-17 year olds, the report also tell us that over a 22% of internet users aged 16+ have a social networking profile. According to research it is common for adults to have a profile on more than one site and more than half of social net workers say that they visit their accounts once in a day . It has been indicated by research that social media sites have changed meaning of friends. People now derive its meaning making list of people have only online friendship but never met in real life.( 2 April 2008, Social Networking: A Quantitative and Qualitative Research Report into Attitudes , Behaviors and Use Ofcom Social Networking Sites Research) Dennis A. Pitta says, use of advertising media in a traditional way have been reduced in the last few years due to online competitors. The mixture of these connections, increasing Wi-Fi and access to internet, and apart from this varies preferences of customer and ease in getting what they want has put traditional media in danger. Companies that did not exist ten years ago, like Facebook and Twitter, now overshadow traditional publishers face book and twitter who had no standing earlier now overpower the traditional media. Newspapers, for example, being most popular are now hardly existing. cities that boasting of having huge variety are now hardly having one . Even Washington Post   was so successful is now surviving by offering lesser ads and also reduced content result the jobs in newspapers are getting affected and size of the content is getting reduced. Taking example of the classic magazine,  Business week, It was sold to Bloomberg for less than $5 million (Journal of Consu mer Marketing, Volume 27, Issue 5 Dennis A. Pitta). Social media has also affected radio and television advertising as well. Though , they are not dying out completely but are giving importance to alternatives. the trend toward product in traditional ways of advertising have reached its highest point. A US television show,  Bones, featured actors driving in a Toyota Sienna minivan. One commented that the car seemed unsuited to the driver who was a single woman. Her reply was that as she was artist, the Sienna had enough space for her canvases and was still a good car to drive. In this way by twisting traditional ways traditional media is still trying to keep up there standing. For super active marketers social media acts as a breath of change. They give a two-way one-to-one marketing message. Though the manner in which described is complicated but is accurate. Social media has a strong word of mouth which can be easily given to there audience, which is the one-to-one element. Furthermore , it gives advertisers freedom to understand the consumers reaction. There is a surprising trend towards social media due to the advantages available. Therefore advertisers have shifted there budgets to social media due to wide reach as it reaches there target market more easily. Advent of a new marketing tool leads to using it to best possible level. The challenge is to understand the advantages and disadvantages of social media. Agencies are employing experts in this area and are trying to master the information resource to lots of advertisers. This has led to development of specialist companies that give new and varied approaches to advertising on social media. These companies have a better idea search engine optimization and blogging. The changes made in social media started about ten years ago with ru

Cultural Diversity In Schools :: Education Culture Socioeconomic Status Essays

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Since early American history, schools, like society, have addressed cultural diversity in different ways. In the colonial days, some attempts to adjust to cultural differences were made in the New York colony, but the dominant American culture was the norm in the general public, as well as most of the schools. As America approached the nineteenth century, the need for a common culture was the basis for the educational forum. Formal public school instruction in cultural diversity was rare, and appreciation or celebration of minority or ethnic culture essentially was nonexistent in most schools. In the 1930's, the educators were in the progressive education movement, called for programs of cultural diversity that encouraged ethnic and minority students to study their heritage. This movement became popular in many schools until around 1950. Now, these days in education, the term multicultural education never escapes a teacher's thoughts (Ryan, 26).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What does the term "multicultural education" mean to you? It means different things to different people. For instance, to some minority communities, it means to foster pride and self-esteem among minority students, like the progressive movement in the 1930's. Another example would be in the white communitites, that multicultural programs are designed to cultivate an appreciation of various cultural, racial, and ethnic traditions. Cortes defines multicultural education by the process by which schools help prepare young people to live with greater understanding, cooperation, effectiveness, and dedication to equality in a multicultural nation and inerdependent world (Cortes, 16).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When I observed at Madison Elementary in December, I expected the school would be multicultural in the sense of ethnic or racial backgrounds. Instead, I was very surprised to discover that the school was predominately white students, with only a handful of African American students in each classroom. I did find out that the Wheeling Island area was in very low status pertaining to income. Not only did over half of the students receive free or reduced lunch, but the students academic skills were below the national norm. I never realized what an effect of economic status can affect a student's academic progress. Of course there are out lying factors, the parent involvement was at a minimum because most families consisted of only one care taker. To make ends meet the single parent had to spend most of his/her time working for money to buy clothes, food, and to keep their children healthy. Madison Elementary had made great strides to improve their efforts to better the students academic progress. The school had instilled different programs like A-Team, Pre-K classes, Reading Recovery, various health services, outreach to families, and many more to ensure

A Brief History of the Palestine Israeli Conflict

Palestine sits upon the Mediterranean Sea between Egypt, Syria, and Arabia; the land has switched hands many times over the past few thousands of years. Being a holy land for all three Abrahamic religions has led to a brutal conflict between them since their formation. The current conflict in Palestine has been raging for about three quarters of a century, but before it can be addressed some history must be known.For four centuries the land had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and as it began to collapse in the late 19th century ethnic Jews worldwide started a semi secular nationalist movement called Zionism which called for a return to their homeland of Israel which was promised to them by g-d in the Torah. In the First World War the Ottomans were on the losing side, and in 1917, with the Zionist movement growing, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Arthur Belfour declared that Britain backed the idea of establishing Palestine as a â€Å"national home for the Jewish people. †At the end of the First World War Britain was gifted the newly formed Mandate for Palestine which in its creation carried Belfour’s promise. Not a state, not the sole national home like Zionists wanted, but a place where any Jews who wanted to could go without fear of the persecution that had hounded them for millennia. A few years later the revolt of the Arab people against the imperialist occupation of Great Britain began. Many innocents were killed on both sides, but Britain’s response was incredibly brutal leading to the death, maiming or exile of a tenth of the adult male population.In response The British attempted some reconciliation with the Arab community by creating policies to limit Jewish immigration and property purchase. After the Second World War this limitation on immigration kept nearly a hundred thousand displaced Jews from coming into the country. After a series of uprisings by the Jews in Palestine, and general international disapproval on t he continued immigration policy, Britain decided to end their occupation and leave the question of Palestine to the U. N. Shortly thereafter the U. N. oted in favour of the creation of two separate nations of Israel, for the Jews, and Palestine, for the Arabs. The plan was rejected by the Arabs, and soon thereafter a 5 month civil war between the Jews, Arabs, and the British began. In Mid 1948 the United Kingdom withdrew the last of its troops and the new Jewish state declared its independence which signaled the start of the first Arab-Israeli War. A day after independence was declared Iraq, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Egypt declared war on the newly formed state of Israel.Although outnumbered the better organized and better armed Israelis eventually won the war capturing half of the territory that had been mandated to the nation of Palestine. The rest of the country was split between Jordan and Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, more than three quarters of the Muslim population, were forced out of their country in a day now known to the Muslim world as al-Nakba. In response to this there were a series of pogroms against Jewish people in Arab states leading to close to a million Jews fleeing their homes and nearly 700,000 of them settling in place of the displaced Palestinians.More and more displaced Jews found their way into Israel in the succeeding years and tensions rose higher and higher between Israel and the Arabs. Palestinians given some autonomy from Egypt in the Gaza Strip launched frequent attacks against the occupying forces. In the early 60s relations reached a new low; the Arab world refused to recognize Israel as a state, and in 1967 the Holy Land was once again preparing for war. On June 5th 1967 Israel launched preemptive strikes against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan crippling their air forces.With air superiority assured the western equipped Israeli army slaughtered the Arabs and suffered less than a thousand deaths. Israel captured the Gaza strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. This is when settlers started popping up in the occupied territory. Jews from around the world began to set up housing in the former Arab land; a form of colonialism which lasts to this day. Around this time the Palestine Liberation Organization formed.The PLO is a political and paramilitary representative of the Palestinian people comprised of a number of different political parties. The largest of which are Fatah, a left wing nationalist party then led by Yasser Arafat, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. PLO members in the surrounding Arab countries, especially Jordan, attacked Israelis in a number of rocket attacks, bombings, etc. ; this prompted a series of bombings and assassinations perpetrated by the Israeli army and Mossad aimed towards thinning the ranks of the PLO.After Israel attacked Jordan to flush the PLO out Jordan withdrew all support fr om the Palestinians and most of the PLO fled towards Lebanon where they were granted an autonomous region in the south. After six years of failed â€Å"diplomatic† efforts following the six days war another war began during the Muslim month of Ramadan on the most important Jewish holy day Yom Kippur. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan attacked Israel who received support from the U. S. After only 19 days of fighting Israel once again won, but it no longer was the invincible bastion against the Arab world that it once thought it was; they had been shaken.On the other hand the Arabs, which had had early success in the war, now felt like they had more of a chance. This combination of events led to the Camp David Accords in 1978 between Egypt and Israel; this was the first peace agreement between an Arab state and Israel. Egypt got the Sinai Peninsula back and in return recognized Israel. . In 1982, in an effort to stamp out the PLO and aid the Christian government, Israel invaded So uthern Lebanon. After eleven months Israel achieved victory against the PLO and their allies, and the PLO subsequently fled to Libya.The PLO continued to represent Palestine in exile much to the chagrin of Israel; a few years later they would bomb their headquarters in Libya completely destroying it and killing hundreds of people. In December of 1987 The First Intifada, a collective uprising of the Palestinian people against the occupiers, began. An increasing series of incidents between Palestinians and Israelis in the occupied territories lead to isolated rioting that soon evolved into a large scale conflict. The PLO and its associates at home quickly assumed control and began guiding the fighting as best they could.The PLO had always been widely secular, and during the Intifada more and more Islamist Palestinian groups began gaining power including Fatah’s main rival Hamas; who, much like the Taliban, received funding and support from Israel to foster discord among Palesti nians. Palestine suffered greatly during the uprising, suffering many times the losses of Israel, but it had some results that seemed promising. The most important was the Oslo Accords; the first true face to face attempt at finding an agreement between Israel and the PLO.The Oslo Accords, on condition of the PLO renouncing terrorism and disarming, established the creation of an interim government for Palestine called the Palestinian National Authority, recognition of Israel by Palestine and vice versa, withdrawing the IDF from what they deemed occupied territories, and set a date five years in the future to finish negotiations and set up a permanent government in Palestine. The PFLP and other hardliners in the PLO rejected the Oslo Accords, refused to disarm, and continue to boycott the PLO to this day.Settlers continued to move into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, atrocities continued on both sides, and the five year deadline quickly sailed by. Late in 2000 a very different Intifada happened; instead of the stone it had become the gun and the suicide bomb. The Oslo Accords had been broken and open warfare began. During the four year conflict thousands were killed on both sides; however, once again Palestinian deaths outnumbered Israeli almost three to one. Towards the end of the conflict Yasser Arafat passed leadership of Fatah over to Mahmoud Abbas and in late 2004 died from polonium poisoning.In 2005 the conflict was declared officially over; later in the year Israel withdrew all their settlers from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the West bank. The Gaza strip was in hands of the Palestinians for the first time in half a century. In the 2006 elections Hamas and Fatah won forming a coalition government, and in 2007 this broke down into armed conflict when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. This week open warfare between Palestinian extremist groups, both secular and Islamist, and Israel in the Gaza Strip began again.For the first time in 21 years air raid sirens are going off in Tel Aviv. Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah still control what little of the West Bank that isn’t occupied. He is going to the U. N at the end of the month in an effort to get recognized as a non-member observer state and make his point for returning to the borders before the six day war; they have the majority needed for state hood, and because they aren’t going for full member status again the Security Council can’t veto. What solution can be found to such a deep rooted conflict? The most widely accepted solution is one of two separate states.A poll taken in Palestine in 2011 showed 34% of Palestinians accepting the two state solutions, but it has much more support in moderate circles in Israel. There are some serious issues that need to be addressed for something like this to happen. What borders would they choose? More than likely would be a return to the pre-1967 borders, only 22% of historic Palestine. What happens to the five million P alestinian refugees around the world when they can’t return to their homes inside de facto Israel? What happens to the Arabs left inside of Israel’s borders? To Palestinians a two state solution is looking less and less likely.The same poll showed 66% support for this solution but as of now support is growing. In this solution, which I will be advocating, a single nation of â€Å"Israstine† would exist upon the historic Palestinian borders. Arabs and Jews would be equal citizens coexisting and both taking part in the government. Israel does not like this plan; Palestinians would swiftly outnumber them and remove their identity as the sole Jewish majority. Unlike the two state solution the problem of getting caught in the wrong borders and having to uproot yourself doesn’t exist. Palestinians in exile could return to their homeland freely.There are of course hard liners on both sides that advocate other solutions: hardliners in Israel that just want to gob ble up the rest of Palestine; hardliners in Palestine that want to completely destroy Israel. Although these will have to be addressed the main focus has to be on the two state vs. binational solution. As I write this rockets are killing civilians; cease fires are being broken; crimes against humanity are being committed. If an agreement can’t be found soon it isn’t going to end well for anyone. A fraction of my Sources Farsakh, Leila. â€Å"The One-State Solution And The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Palestinian Challenges AndProspects. † Middle East Journal 65. 1 (2011): 55-71. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. Hoffman, Gil. â€Å"6 in 10 Palestinians Reject 2-state Solution, Survey Finds. † Www. JPost. com. N. p. , 15 July 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. . Kattan, Victor. From Coexistence To Conquest : International Law And The Origins Of The Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891-1949. n. p. : Pluto Press, 2009. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 14 Nov. 201 2. Morris, Benny. One State, Two States : Resolving The Israel/Palestine Conflict. n. p. : Yale Univ. Press, 2009. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

What Does the Demand for Money Factor of Inflation Mean

[Q:] I read the article Why Dont Prices Decline During A Recession? on inflation and the article Why Does Money Have Value? on the value of money. I cant seem to understand one thing. What is the demand for money? Does that change? The other three elements all make perfect sense to me but demand for money is confusing me to no end. Thanks. [A:] Excellent question! In those articles, we discussed that inflation was caused by a combination of four factors. Those factors are: The supply of money goes up.The supply of goods goes down.Demand for money goes down.Demand for goods goes up. You would think that the demand for money would be infinite. Who doesnt want more money? The key thing to remember is that wealth is not money. The collective demand for wealth is infinite as there is never enough to satisfy everyones desires. Money, as illustrated in How much is the per capita money supply in the U.S.? is a narrowly defined term which includes things like paper currency, travelers checks, and savings accounts. It doesnt include things like stocks and bonds, or forms of wealth like homes, paintings, and cars. Since money is only one of many forms of wealth, it has plenty of substitutes. The interaction between money and its substitutes explain why the demand for money changes. Well look at a few factors which can cause the demand for money to change. 1. Interest Rates Two of the more important stores of wealth are bonds and money. These two items are substitutes, as money is used to purchase bonds and bonds are redeemed for money. The two differ in a few key ways. Money generally pays very little interest (and in the case of paper currency, none at all) but it can be used to purchase goods and services. Bonds do pay interest, but cannot be used to make purchases, as the bonds must first be converted into money. If bonds paid the same interest rate as money, nobody would purchase bonds as they are less convenient than money. Since bonds pay interest, people will use some of their money to purchase bonds. The higher the interest rate, the more attractive bonds become. So a rise in the interest rate causes the demand for bonds to rise and the demand for money to fall since money is being exchanged for bonds. So a fall in interest rates causes the demand for money to rise. 2. Consumer Spending This is directly related to the fourth factor, Demand for goods goes up. During periods of higher consumer spending, such as the month before Christmas, people often cash in other forms of wealth like stocks and bonds, and exchange them for money. They want money in order to purchase goods and services, like Christmas presents. So if the demand for consumer spending increases, so will the demand for money. 3. Precautionary Motives If people think that they will suddenly need to buy things in the immediate future (say its 1999 and theyre worried about Y2K), they will sell bonds and stocks and hold onto money, so the demand for money will go up. If people think that there will be an opportunity to purchase an asset in the immediate future at a very low cost, they will also prefer to hold money. 4. Transaction Costs for Stocks and Bonds If it becomes difficult or expensive to quickly buy and sell stocks and bonds, they will be less desirable. People will want to hold more of their wealth in the form of money, so the demand for money will rise. 5. Change in the General Level of Prices If we have inflation, goods become more expensive, so the demand for money rises. Interestingly enough, the level of money holdings tends to rise at the same rate as prices. So while the nominal demand for money rises, the real demand stays precisely the same. (To learn the difference between nominal demand and real demand, see Whats the Difference Between Nominal and Real?) 6. International Factors Usually when we discuss the demand for money, were implicitly talking about the demand for a particularly nations money. Since Canadian money is a substitute for American money, international factors will influence the demand for money. From A Beginners Guide to Exchange Rates and the Foreign Exchange Market we saw that the following factors can cause the demand for a currency to rise: An increase in the demand of that countrys goods abroad.An increase in the demand for domestic investment by foreigners.The belief that the value of the currency will rise in the future.A central banking wanting to increase its holdings of that currency. To understand these factors in detail, see Canadian-to-American Exchange Rate Case Study and The Canadian Exchange Rate Demand for Money Wrap Up The demand for money is not at all constant. There are quite a few factors which influence the demand for money. Factors Which Increase the Demand for Money A reduction in the interest rate.A rise in the demand for consumer spending.A rise in uncertainty about the future and future opportunities.A rise in transaction costs to buy and sell stocks and bonds.A rise in inflation causes a rise in the nominal money demand but real money demand stays constant.A rise in the demand for a countrys goods abroad.A rise in the demand for domestic investment by foreigners.A rise in the belief of the future value of the currency.A rise in the demand for a currency by central banks (both domestic and foreign).