In our new generation customization is very appealing. Customization deals with everything from cell phones and other mobile devices, to video gaming, and of course using the Internet. Now there is a lot that lies beneath the art of customization. It changes the theory of "gatekeeping," which is a concept that is fundamental to the status, utility, and functioning of traditional mass communication. It simply does this by allowing communication receivers to perform as communication sources and thereby weaken the role of the professional gatekeepers. It is clear that customization is transforming communication as well. There is also a physiological aspect of customization. It only makes sense that newer digital media be made as time goes on and the more new digital media, more customization is being tagged along with it. This process also changes the way of communication. The article stated how the outcome of customization is tailored content, and it has been in existence before digital media. It was just in the form of widespread mailing of personalized letters and phone calls which were made by customer service agents. The article also stated that it isn't the content that is tailored. It is that the users are able to carry out the tailoring by themselves. Ultimately the receivers are able to configure the nature and course of content that they receive.
Personalization
Now how does customization differ from personalization? According to the article there was some testing that had to be done. It was said that the ability to act as a gatekeeper will probably inspire other users to do the same thing. "The agency model of customization argues that the psychological effects of customization technologies are fundamentally premised on the user seeing as the source or sender of content. The current investigation employs this model in the context of customized news content and performs s theory-testing exercise that pits the self-as-source (agency) explanation against the positive content attributes (tailored content) explanation for the positive appeal of customization" (Sundar & Marathe 2). Now, the testing between the tailored content reasoning and the agency explanation reasoning depends on the difference between the system initiated personalization, known as, SIP, and user initiated customization, known as, UIC. Now based on different information requests, there will be different results. Expanding personal importance of the content for the user seems to be the main reason for SIP. "Personalization is defined as a process that changes the functionality, interface, information content, or distinctiveness of a system to increase its personal relevance to an individual" (Sundar & Marathe 4). That right there is the difference between customization and personalization. Much of the personalization process targeted tailored content, which was the end result, rather than the process of tailoring, and those are the ones who do it. They are many different definitions for personalization though. It has been said that it is defined as tailoring products or service to a buyer's preferences. Other definitions say that personalization is all about automatic changes to a website to assist individual users' needs, interests, goals, and tasks. Customization has a strong emphasis on the user's role in identifying data. Think of personalization as adaptive hypermedia and customization as adaptable hypermedia.
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