Introduction:
Over the course of ten days, I have been recording the
various sources and platforms that I gather my news from. The results from this
experiment have been quite revealing, and I’ve see a much more news hungry side
of me than I ever thought existed. However it was also interesting to see just
how I have compared with my fellow class mates and I get the feeling that we do
not all see eye to eye on what our predominant media is.
The Results:
Media use in Minutes Per Day
|
16/03/2012
|
17/03/2012
|
18/03/2012
|
19/03/2012
|
20/03/2012
|
21/03/2012
|
22/03/2012
|
23/03/2012
|
24/03/2012
|
25/03/2012
|
Cumulative results
|
Newspaper (hard copies)
|
30
|
0
|
45
|
30
|
20
|
0
|
30
|
15
|
15
|
45
|
230
|
Radio
|
0
|
0
|
15
|
0
|
15
|
0
|
0
|
10
|
5
|
0
|
45
|
Television
|
60
|
60
|
60
|
60
|
75
|
60
|
80
|
65
|
50
|
45
|
615
|
Smart Phone
|
35
|
30
|
30
|
25
|
45
|
40
|
20
|
15
|
30
|
25
|
295
|
Blogs
|
15
|
30
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
25
|
15
|
5
|
5
|
10
|
105
|
Facebook
|
30
|
10
|
0
|
15
|
10
|
20
|
5
|
25
|
30
|
15
|
160
|
Internet( BBC, Courier Mail, Brisbane times etc)
|
60
|
45
|
50
|
65
|
45
|
45
|
30
|
60
|
55
|
35
|
490
|
Total Minutes
|
1940
|
During the 10 days I recorded this information, I have accumulated 1940 minutes of media use, specifically news information. This equates to approximately 1 1/3 days of news absorption. TV was the dominant medium, garnering a whooping 32% of Media consumed, followed by internet news at 25%. Both traditional newspapers and smart phone news got 12% and 15% respectively, but the real winner of my attention was the television.
Analysis:
Over the course of the ten days, I found myself constantly using the same programs and venturing to the same websites everyday, with little variety to spice any of it up. For my TV news, I spent the majority of my time on Channel ten, watching things like The Project, the 5pm news (on occasion) and their new morning show. For internet usage, the main website visited was the BBC, with news on the Syrian Uprising being the one ongoing story I followed most religiously. This evidence suggest, that while I personally believe that old people are creatures of habit, it might just be that we youngsters abuse familiarity just as ferociously.
What did strike me as unusual behavior, at least were I am concerned, is that my use of the internet has significantly increased. While my use of the internet for news came in at roughly 75 minutes a day, my general usage was up at 190 minutes a day, which is more than 3hours!
Evaluation of Media and Production Use:
Media Production:
I thought I would discuss my media production first, because it was the one that struck me as the most unusual. Whilst I've never particularly thought of myself as someone who frequently produces his own media, thinking back over my ten days of recorded information, as well as in the past, I've come to realize that I produce far more than I thought.
For example, on the day that I've typed this evaluation, I've put out 2 posts on facebook, 3 links on twitter and done some more work on my blogs (more will be up soon, I promise). Along with all this, I've also realized, that during my youth, I actually produced and made my own internet show, as well as some embarrassing clip art videos that can only be described as fan fiction (O the horror). This revelation of sorts, has reawakened my mind somewhat and made me appreciate how simple it is to involve myself in media production, but also on how much I have enjoyed it. For your viewing pleasure, I thought that I would add one of my videos from YouTube. This one was the most popular, so enjoy! Doctor Evil Pants.
Internet (Facebook, Internet News and Blogs):
When I first begun this media diary, I was originally planning on having internet fall under one category, however I found that I frequented 3 main sources so much, that each was actually large enough to form its own category, Facebook, Internet News and Blogs.These fields were particularly interesting, because they showed just how similar we are with one another, but how different we are based on the finer details. For example, while I spent a large portion of my time everyday, roughly 3-3.5hours on the net, my time was not spent dominated by Facebook. Rather I caught myself frequenting sites such as the BBC or The Escapist far more often, while facebook languished in the background, fed on nothing but pity checks and likes. I also noticed, that while 32% of the cohort are reading blogs, I never give the light of day to any but a select few, who also constitute the ones I go to for news.
When it came to news however, I did notice that there were some marked similarities between me and the rest of the cohort. For example, Internet News rated at number 2 with TV gaining a slight edge, which was very similar to my own experience and even though Facebook was one of the things I went to for news the least (falling 5th in percentage), it was still very much the same as the rest of the group, as it finished 4th in percentage.
In short, I was actually surprised by how many small differences and similarities between us, which just stands to prove that, while we are very similar, we are also very different.
Traditional Media (Newspapers, Radio and Television):
Over the course of the 10 days, I found myself using far more traditional media than I thought I ever would. Television came in at number one for both my source of media and my source of news, with newspapers only be edged out by smart phones to place 4th in the number of sources for news. Radio was used very sparingly, but due to me not driving and a poor phone battery, I rarely ever go to it.I found, that the main reason I turn into the TV for news and media so often, was that it provided me with the opportunity to relax and let everything come to me without any sort of mental energy required. It proved that after a stressful day, that it was much easier to turn to something like the Project, because it not only provides information on the events, but a light breezy form of entertainment. I'm not sure whether or not this was the reasoning with the rest of my fellow students, but it was interesting to note that most people gathered their news from TV, with internet, newspaper and facebook falling behind.
In a similar vein, newspapers provided me with a great way to relax on those tedious train rides home and it must be send, while it is a very old person thing to do, I thoroughly enjoyed waking up in the mornings to a nice cup of tea and a Sunday Mail. It seems too, that the rest of the cohort feels the same, because newspapers actually came in significantly higher than I expected in terms of number of readers, mirroring my own with both falling within the top 5 (3 and 4 respectively) of top sources for news, who says traditional media is dead!
Smart Phone:
This is honestly the form of media that surprised me the most, because I would never consider how much use I actually get out of my phone. What was particularly surprising was that this appears to be something endemic, at least in regards to the rest of Jour1111. For example, in the top sources of news for the grade are, TV, Internet News, Newspapers, Facebook and Radio, while for me, they were TV, Internet News, Smart Phone, Newspapers and Facebook. Even if I were to consider the other category which would likely house Smart Phone news, it comes it at a 3.5%, or 15 people out of 436 people. This news genuinely shocked me, because 15% of all my news was gathered from my phone and I expected everyone else to be in a similar vein.Conclusion:
During the past 10 days, I never realized just how substantial my news use was. Having kept this media diary has made me realize just how hungry I am for the news and how significant the impact that it plays in my daily life. The most interesting part for me though, is just how much I rely on my little HTC for my daily news and how much time I spend every day on the net. As well as this, I've also come to appreciate the importance of media production in my life. Overall I have found this experience to thoroughly enjoyable and have genuinely had fun (key nerdy sound music).Click Here for a Link to the Rest of the student results
No comments:
Post a Comment