Our first piece of assessment for JOUR1111 required us to keep a record of our own personal media usage over a period of 10 days and then provide an analysis of our results. Throughout the analysis, the reasons behind my results and why I tend to favour certain media portals over others will be discussed, as well as my relationship with Journalism and Communication. A comparison between my results and the results of a survey conducted to the entire JOUR1111 cohort will also aid in the analysis of my personal media use. These results will also be placed in graphs and tables and any patterns that become evident through the data will be discussed and explained.
In order to produce accurate results I recorded the amount of time I used every kind of communication tool and media that I came across throughout the day. To aid in the analysis of my results, I chose to divide the media that I access regularly into 2 categories: Computer and Other. Although most of my media intake is completed via my computer and the internet, there are alternative media forms that I engage in daily.
The following spreadsheets indicate how I recorded my personal media and communication usage and will provide an accurate insight into the amount of time (minutes) I spent on each outlet:
Computer:
Other:
The following graphs are a result of the data from the two spreadsheets. They demonstrate how each outlet compares to the other in terms of usage:
Computer:
Other:
As can be seen from my first graph, a huge majority of my media and communication usage is completed via my laptop. I am able to search and locate any news article ever written. I can listen to old radio broadcasts. I can re-watch television programs and interviews. This has resulted in the low media usage of these same outlets (radio, television and newspapers) seen in graph 2. It seems that the concept of acquiring something as soon as possible is what's most appealing about computer-based media and communication portals.
Whilst you may assume I have an addiction to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, I feel it is important to highlight that whilst my usage was incredibly high for these websites (seen in Graph 1), this is due to the fact that often those particular sites are left running on my computer. Being a resident at The Women's College, they are my basic tools for communicating on a social level. They provide me with the information I need when it comes to social, sport and cultural activities. It's how I communicate with other colleges, university peers and my family and friends from home. Without those outlets, I would most likely be a lot less social.
A survey was conducted in which the 432 students undertaking JOUR1111 answered questions regarding their daily media usage. The results showed that 43.1% of students who took the survey got their news online, 29.6% of them spent two to three hours a day on the internet and 91.9% of these people spent most of their time on Facebook. I seem to fit into every one of those percentages. In terms of television and radio usage, the majority of students watch television for one to two hours a day and they listen to the less than one hour of radio daily. This is where I differ. As I am a resident of The Women's College my access to radio and television is limited. This has significantly reduced my access to news broadcasts resulting in a reliance on other (online) media for information about world news.
In conclusion, my media usage follows the general trends of today: high social networking use and a decreasing use of traditional print media. This should not be a surprise as my generation is referred to as the technology generation. The internet has always been accessible so we rely heavily on it to provide us with news and entertainment. Our generation is so lucky to have the internet at our disposal. At the click of a mouse we are able to access more news portals via the Internet than anyone could have ever imagined.
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