JOUR 1111 Assessment One- Media Use Diary

Media, put simply, is the main way of communication in this day and age and includes television, Internet, newspapers and radio, among other forms. It is virtually inescapable with most people accessing the media every day. The task of logging my personal media use and production over a ten day period proved quite confronting and revealed that I am not as current as prior thought in terms of my media use, despite having sufficient access.   

Table One - General Media Use (Logged in minutes or number per day in the case of newspaper and texts)                                                  

Day	Texts-Incoming &Outgoing	T.V News	T.V       Other	Facebook	Twitter	Blog
3.8.12	I- 22 O-19	30	110	40	0	15
4.8.12	I-6 O-3	0	120	30	0	0
5.8.12	I-5 O-4	20	120	15	20	85
6.8.12	I-4 O-5	30	90	40	40	30
7.8.12	I-7 O-5	30	120	30	20	40
8.8.12	I-14 O-13	20	60	10	15	45
9.8.12	I-9 O-11	0	80	10	10	0
10.8.12	I-7 O-5	25	125	20	15	0
11.8.12	I-10 O-12	30	60	0	10	0
12.8.12	I-8 O-6	60	70	35	0	10
Total	I-92 O- 83	245	855	230	130	225

  

 

Day	Internet Study	Books	Online News	Newspaper	Radio
3.8.12	35	25	0	1	5
4.8.12	0	0	0	1	0
5.8.12	0	20	20	1	0
6.8.12	0	40	15	1	5
7.8.12	0	30	20	1	0
8.8.12	60	0	0	1	0
9.8.12	0	10	5	1	0
10.8.12	20	0	0	1	0
11.8.12	40	10	0	1	20
12.8.12	30	0	0	1	5
Total	185	135	60	10	30

 

Table Two -Media Production

Day	Texts Sent	Facebook Statuses	Tweets	Facebook/Blog Comments	Emails Sent
3.8.12	19	0	0	4	0
4.8.12	3	0	1	0	1
5.8.12	4	0	0	6	0
6.8.12	5	0	0	6	0
7.8.12	5	0	0	1	1
8.8.12	13	1	0	4	0
9.8.12	11	0	0	1	3
10.8.12	5	0	3	2	1
11.8.12	12	0	0	0	0
12.8.12	6	1	1	4	0
Total	83	2	5	28	6

As table one depicts, I am not limited in my access to different forms of media. The Internet in particular is readily available to me and is the likely reason why it is my highest point of access to media. Wherever I am, I have access to the Internet. Like 78.8% of my classmates I have an internet-enabled smart phone which I utilise during my commute to university and when outside of the home. Otherwise, I use our wireless Internet connection at home on my laptop. I also noticed that my media production is significantly lower than my media use, as shown in table two. I believe this is because I have always been taught to be extremely mindful of what I put on the Internet as ‘it is out there forever’.

After further examining my Internet media usage it became apparent that a significant amount of the media content I utilised was for social networking purposes. Graph one below depicts that social media accounts for 71% of my Internet usage. This is also reflected in the cohort survey which suggested that of the 89.6% of the class who used Facebook, 41% felt they spent most of their internet time on Facebook. This is an astounding figure and is indicative of the reliance people have on social media for entertainment and information. Social media is a global phenomenon and is gaining popularity because it allows people to stay connected. Although not noted in my diary, my email use was scarce. Again, this is a result of Facebook replacing email as a way to stay in touch.

The most staggering observation I made was based upon my television viewing. On average I watched television for 1.83 hours per day over the ten day period, though some days were higher than this. Whilst this was in sync with the majority of the cohort (27.9% stated they watched 1-2 hours per day), I was concerned to find that 77.73% of my T.V viewing was for entertainment purposes. The remainder of my T.V viewing was news and current affairs programs i.e. 60 Minutes and Sunday Night. My T.V entertainment viewing was quite high as the Olympic Games were broadcast at the time. My news viewing was restricted to local channels seven and nine (out of choice) meaning my exposure to global news was reduced.

As stated in my diary I read one newspaper (The Courier Mail or Sunday Mail) every day. This is habitual and was instilled in me as a child. Our family also has the Courier Mail delivered to the house daily. Consequently, in the survey I answered that hard copy newspapers were my most common source of news. This is primarily due to the convenience factor of the delivered newspaper. Being one of only 3.6% who had this answer, I am in the minority. I understand that Journalism in hard copy newspapers is not as up to date as online newspapers or twitter as stories are always developing overnight, thus its lacking popularity.

Like 61.2% of the cohort, prior to starting JOUR1111 I did not have a Twitter account. I considered it to be a waste of time and didn’t understand it. This is probably due to the fact that Twitter is a relatively new social media platform and I don’t know many people who are active members. However, in my first 10 days of Twitter I spent nearly as much time tweeting as I did reading books (See graph two). Twitter gave me immediate access to news of the world and was entertaining at the same time. My belief is that Twitter will only grow in popularity as people begin to understand how it actually works. I have subsequently opened a second personal twitter account.

 Graph Two

Again I was in the majority of those who didn’t have a blog before JOUR1111 (61.8%). My blog usage was relatively high but only for assessment purposes. Blogging is very time consuming which is probably why a large quantity of the cohort were not active bloggers, myself included.

As a whole this exercise has made it apparent that my media usage was not as modern as a large quantity of the cohort. This can be seen particularly in my news media usage where my main source of news was from print newspapers. It has also shown that my viewing of journalism is not as frequent as it should be as a journalism student.   The course has forced me to explore different types of news media platforms that are faster and more current, which as a prospective journalist proves invaluable.