Personal Media Use and Production Diary

Media, through use and production, has become an integral part of our daily lives. With technological advancements we are no longer limited to the “traditional media” forms such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television; instead we have high speed access through the internet, as well as capabilities in our mobile phones. Over a ten day period, from the 12^th to 23^rd of March, I recorded the media I used and produced. Throughout the course of this dossier I will examine my relationship to journalism and communication in relation to that recorded information, as well as compare it to the media use of my peers.

Table of Media Use

Media use in mins	Mon 12th	Tues 13th	Wed   14th	Thur 15th	Fri 16th	Sat 17th	Sun   18th	Mon 19th	Tues 20th	Wed   21st	Total
Internet											1602
*Facebook	25	23	56	102	74	59	7	11	91	17	465
*Twitter	-	-	-	16	4	-	-	-	19	9	48
**Blog	-	-	-	-	56	-	-	-	-	7	63
*Email	14	5	29	15	14	5	12	-	-	9	103
Banking	3	-	11	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	14
Youtube	-	-	-	45	-	-	-	-	25	-	70
Online Uni Readings	145	50	-	99	58	189	78	-	54	71	744
Online News	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	21		21
General/Google	4	5	-	-	65	-	-	-	-	-	74
Television											992
ABC news 24	55	42	11	53	41	89	-	23	-	32	346
Other News	-	-	-	11	23	-	-	-	-	9	43
Entertainment	144	-	30	29	135	90	145	30	-	-	603
Phone											47
Facebook	10	7	-	-	-	-	-	13	17	-	47
Total	400	132	137	369	470	432	242	77	227	154	2641
Unless otherwise indicated, media is only used    * indicates media both used and produced     ** indicates media only produced

Overall I found the results quite surprising, with 2641 minutes of my time over the ten days used up by media. Of that time, 60.66% was in the form of internet, 37.56% in television and 1.78% was on my phone’s Facebook app. In addition to this media use, I further participated in 204 text messages, that is, 117 received and 87 sent. Critically speaking, however, the vast majority of the time was spent consuming, rather than producing media.

Clearly it can be seen that I predominantly use “new media” with the majority of my communication (through means such as Facebook, Twitter and Email) and information (through online university readings, Google and YouTube) coming from the internet on my laptop. It should be noted that most of my time was spent doing university readings, followed closely by Facebook. While some may consider spending this much time on Facebook as ridiculous, it only really encapsulates how a large portion of society are communicating and socialising; this social aspect is what lies behind my use of Facebook and consequently also Email and Twitter. According to the survey results, 91.9% of my peers also predominately use the internet for Facebook, with 94.7% only having one account, which is how many I have (fig. 1). My other internet media usage, including banking, YouTube, blogging and online news were seldom during this time period and usually relies on my daily activity. As such, no real pattern is able to be established for these activities. Overall, my internet usage averaged to 160 minutes per day, which is the time that the largest group of my peers are spending online (fig. 2).

Fig. 1

Fig. 2
Peers - Hours Spent Online 

Furthermore, despite 37.56% of my media use coming from Television, I have no other form of “traditional media”. Evidently this highlights a lack of diversity in my media consumption as I do not receive any information from newspapers, magazines or radio. As such, this limits the amount, and style, of information that I am exposed to. Surprisingly, still 51.6% and 39.1% of students get their news from newspapers and radio respectively (fig. 3). However, over the course of the ten days I did view 346 minutes of ABC News 24 and a further 43 minutes of local news. I feel that by watching ABC News 24 I am exposed to far more news stories than I would reading a newspaper, with TV able to keep me more up-to-date during the day. Obtaining the news from TV once again places me in the majority of my peers with 71.4% also getting their news this way. My other TV usage during this time I have defined as “entertainment” as this time was spent watching shows and movies on free-to-air TV. Despite being called “entertainment” during this time I was exposed to large amounts of advertising, in the form of adverts or even product placement in shows, as well as regular news updates. Therefore, even during this time I was open to, both consciously and subconsciously, media and journalism. With my total TV time averaging to 99 minutes per day, I am grouped with 29.9% of my peers.

Fig. 3
Peers- Source of News

In regards to my phone, it is evident that this is only a small part of my daily media usage. With it not being a smart phone, it severely limits the activity I can participate in, and therefore only contributes to 1.78% of my total usage; with a non-smart phone Facebook app being my only use. However, the survey result shows that just over a fifth of my peers also do not have smart phones (fig. 4), indicating that while smart phones seem to now dominate within the journalism cohort, I am not completely behind the times. In addition, as stated before, over the ten days 204 texts were exchanged between me and friends, signifying that I also use this as base for my communication. While, at the moment, my relation to communication and journalism is not greatly impacted by not having a smart phone, surely as media progresses further into the “3.0 semantic web” not having the internet capabilities on my phone will start to impact the communication and journalism I am exposed to.

Fig. 4

As can be seen from the above analysis and evaluation, my media use generally falls in line with the majority of my peers in the journalism cohort. However, my deficit of “traditional media” and smart phone capabilities reduce my variation of, and contact to, communication and journalism as a whole. As technology further progresses, surely “traditional media” will become further out-dated and my ability to use phone related media will increase; moving me and society further into the “sematic media” that is progressing.