Emily Neilsen 2012

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What is it?
The Media use diary is a form of recording the amount of time spent using forms of media.

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Check out the Analysis!
Come to this page to see the analysis made about my media usage.

Contents
Page 2

Introduction and Aims The Media Use Table

Page 3

page

Page 4

Media Chart Analysis

My Media Use Diary

The Media Use Diary was used to record the amount of time I spent using and being exposed to various sources of media. Being measured in minutes, I am able to see clearly through this dairy how long my exposure is to the media per day. By looking through this diary, you will see the processes undertaken in order to come to a final conclusion about media use, and what this means about Journalism in our current society and my interaction with journalism.

Page 5

Questioning and Problem Solving

Page 6

Conclusions

Who am I?

I am a first-year Journalism student taking my first look at my media use in order to learn more about (and have more of an insight about) the way I use and am exposed to media.

To find

MY AIM

To interpret and discover my media usage

connections between Journalism, communication and the media.

Evaluate. Devise a plan to be conscious of media.

MEDIA USE TABLE

(ALL UNITS MEASURE IN MINUTES) Media Type Email Facebook Twitter Blogging Online Magazines Online News Newspaper Magazines Online Magazines TV/Movie downloads General online Browsing Television Radio TOTAL DAY 1 Saturday 10 40 0 12 0 0 15 0 0 0 DAY 2 Sunday 8 20 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 DAY 3 Monday 20 60 20 15 10 0 15 0 20 0 DAY 4 Tuesday 12 35 0 0 0 0 20 0 0 45 DAY 5 Wednesday 0 5 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 DAY 6 Thursday 15 20 0 30 10 20 20 10 0 0 DAY 7 Friday 15 30 10 0 0 0 15 0 0 0 DAY 8 Saturday 35 45 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 DAY 9 Sunday 0 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 DAY 10 Monday 40 0 10 25 15 25 20 0 0 45 TOTAL 155 280 40 82 35 45 110 20 20 90

30 30 10 147

15 30 55 138

150 150 0 460

10 30 0 152

12 30 30 82

80 140 0 345

40 30 45 185

20 0 0 100

10 0 50 85

20 60 30 290

387 500 220 1984

Total Time Spent using Media: 1984mins = 33.07 Hours

Top 3 Most Used Media: Television, General Browsing & facebook.

Email Facebook

Twitter
Blogging Online Magazines Online News Newspaper Magazines Online Magazines TV/Movie downloads General online Browsing

Least used Media: Magazines (online and offline)

Seeing things Clearly:

The facts, graphs and more
The pie chart above shows that although some sections are bigger than the other, there are no huge deviations apart from the slithers, which are online magazines, magazines, twitter and tv/movie downloads. It is no surprise to me that I use these less. What was a surprising outcome, however, was the amount of general browsing. It makes me realize that I am subconsciously being exposed to a lot of online media. This means I am consuming information without realizing it, and ignoring information while I browse.

Using this pie chart was a lot easier than drawing conclusions from the graph alone for me. This is because, as I have found, I like to be communicated to visually, and in the chart there is a lot of information. Through this graph, the information is condensed and clear. As I think about this, I see the reason why images are so important in Journalism, and have to be thought about just as much as the story. It is important to communicate with people in different forms.

Connection between Journalism, media and Communication Looking at the quote to the right, I found it interesting upon reading it, as I was split between two points. First of all I had to argue with myself whether I disagree or agree. On the one side, people want to make issues known for change, yet those who suppress also have good stories. Yet for the advertising, I found I agreed with this somewhat, particularly after doing this media diary. Looking at television, I spent approximately 8.33 hours watching shows, news, reality TV over the 10 days. This means that I was exposed to so many commercials and stories that I ignored, tuning out until the show comes on again. So then what is really classified as news on TV?

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News is something someone wants suppressed. Everything else is just advertising.

- Lord Northcliff.

From asking this question, although I cannot answer it at this point in my Journalism career, I can tell that there are connections between Journalism, media and communication. Otherwise, this question would not have had to be asked. The media keeps us informed, through journalism, what is happening at a given time. This all communicated with an audience using writing, sound, images and video. I think that it is not only important, but pretty impossible, to have one without the other. However being aware of how this is done is another problem. Below, I have come up with some possible solutions to how I can change my media use for the better, so that I am aware of how Journalists commu nicate through the media.

Through my media diary, I noticed that although I spend a lot of time using online media and television, my exposure to a specific media isnt noticeable. For example, I do not watch a certain amount of news per day, or am not noticing how the web uses media to communicate. Some possible solutions are as follows: 1. Watch more news and read my newspapers/online news. By doing this, I can compare the different ways they communicate to an audience, putting my knowledge of forms of media into practice. 2. Pay more attention to commercials while watching television how are they communicating? 3. While online browsing, look at formats and identify what type of web they use. (E,g Web 2.0, Web 3.0)

In Conclusion, I found that although I was aware of how much I used media and what would be the most common, I wasnt aware of how they were communicating to me, as it would be something happening subconsciously, or something I would ignore. I found that there is a strong connection between Journalism, communication and media, and it is vital to use various types to communicate to a wider audience, as I learnt by using both a table (numbers) and a pie chart (visual). I managed to make a plan to become more conscious of these connections while using these forms of media. I realized that media is constantly changing, so I need to adjust to these changes by keeping informed. I found an argument in a quote about what we consider things to be newsworthy, where I

MY AIM, Revisited
1. To interpret and discover my media usage 2. To find connections between Journalism, communication and media. 3. Evaluate. Devise a plan to be conscious of media.

discovered that a lot of what I do see is advertising. This brings me to my overall conclusion about my future in Journalism: If I want to be a journalist, I must communicate effectively by sourcing newsworthy stories, presented in the appropriate media format. For example, below are the results from an inclass survey. If I know that many young people use facebook, then I will use this form of media to communicate with them. It is about knowing who your audience is, and how you are going to communicate with them.