Media Use and Production Diary

Media Usage and Production Diary

Lauren Binns

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I have recorded my media usage over a period of ten days to determine how I receive my media, and specifically how that affects my interaction with journalism and communication. I have included a range of types of media, including forums that feature in my usage but not necessarily it that of my cohort's usage. I have also excluded forms of media that I never use and I will use these variations to see how my usage compares to that of my cohort; also whether I can site any changes that may improve my interactions with the media. 

Table of media usage over 10 days

TYPE OF MEDIA	DAY 1	DAY 2	DAY 3	DAY 4	DAY 5
TEXTS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	20 MINUTES	1 HOURS
(sent)	13	23	13	5	25
(received)	13	20	17	8	23
PHONE CALLS	10 MINUTES	25 MINUTES	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	45 MINUTES
(made)	0	3	4	9	7
(received)	1	1	2	3	4
FACEBOOK	2 HOURS	1 HOURS	1 HOURS	2 HOURS	2 HOURS
YOTUBE	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	30 MINUTES	0 HOURS	1 HOURS
BLOGGER	0 HOURS	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1.5 HOURS	2 HOURS
TWITTER	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	0 MINUTES	30 MINUTES	20 MINUTES
EMAIL	20 MINUTES	30 MINUTES	10 MINUTES	20 MINUTES	10 MINUTES
WEB BROWSING (ACADEMIC)	2 HOURS	3 HOURS	30 MINUTES	2 HOURS	3 HOURS
WEB BROWSING (ENTERTAINMENT)	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1.5 HOURS	1 HOURS
TV	3 HOURS	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	3 HOURS
NEWS	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	30 MINUTES	1HOURS	1 HOURS
DOWDLOADED VIDEO WATCHING	2 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	0 HOURS	0 HOURS
SKYPE	1 HOURS	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	0 HOURS
PRINT	30 MINUTES	40 MINUTES	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	1 HOURS
	DAY 6	DAY 7	DAY 8	DAY 9	DAY 10
TEXTS	1.5 HOURS	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1.5 HOURS	1 HOURS
(sent)	36	26	8	20	15
(received)	37	26	5	18	13
PHONE CALLS	1.5 HOURS	45 MINUTES	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS
(made)	8	2	2	3	2
(received)	8	4	4	1	3
FACEBOOK	2 HOURS	30 MINUTES	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	2 HOURS
YOTUBE	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	20 MINUTES	30 MINUTES	0 HOURS
BLOGGER	2.5 hours	1 HOURS	1.5 HOURS	1 HOURS	2 HOURS
TWITTER	30 MINUTES	20 MINUTES	0 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS
EMAIL	20 MINUTES	10 MINUTES	10 MINUTES	20 MINUTES	30 MINUTES
WEB BROWSING (ACADEMIC)	2 HOURS	2 HOURS	1 HOURS	1 HOURS	2 HOURS
WEB BROWSING (ENTERTAINMENT)	2 HOURS	1 HOURS	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS
TV	2 HOURS	30 MINUTES	2 HOURS	2.5 HOURS	2 HOURS
NEWS	2 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	1 HOURS	1.5 HOURS
DOWDLOADED VIDEO WATCHING	20 MINUTES	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	0 HOURS
SKYPE	0 HOURS	0 HOURS	30 MINUTES	0 HOURS	0 HOURS
PRINT	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES	1 HOURS	1 HOURS	30 MINUTES

Figure 1: Graph of personal media use and production

Figure 1 depicts all the data collected of my personal media use over a ten day period. I have chosen to add some forms of media I use frequently that may not feature in other media usage diaries, for example my downloaded video watching. I have also excluded some forms of media that I never use, for example, as portrayed in the class survey, I am one of many participants who do not use nor are familiar with Google+.

The above graph indicates that the most major part of my media usage is web browsing, with a high point of 4 hours’ worth of usage on days two, five and six. This covers both academic and recreational browsing including, but not limited to, activities such as using search engines, online banking, online shopping and researching. I had a difficulty separating my usage of 'browsing' and 'News' as much of my news intake does not only come from news specific forums, but also from my online browsing, for example in forums such as ‘Reddit’.

The data also shows that the second highest point of my media usage is watching TV. I have to admit that as much as I try to consciously focus on news watching within my TV watching, much of my TV intake tends to be commercial watching. This stems from the fact that I live in a shared house and my house mate and I do lean towards watching dramas, comedy and trending TV shows. I am often aware that this does limit the way I interact with the media via TV, as the compromise on what to watch at home does not always include a diversity of television stations and is fairly limited to stations such as Channel Ten, Channel 9, GEM and Channel 7. However I know that I can mostly compensate for this with other avenues in which I choose to receive my news.

This brings me to another spike in the chart, my news intake! I note that there is not a great deal of consistency in my news usage from day to day. Day six for example is an hour ahead of other days due to the fact that if I am having a particularly inquisitive day, I seek out more news, perhaps on a specific story, and use a wider range of mediums to do so. Some of the mediums that I receive my news from are online newspapers, newspapers, my web browser home page (nine MSN) and magazines. I mostly use online news as I enjoy browsing through stories and, as we identified in the ‘TEXT’ lecture last week, I like making my own journey through that days stories.

In regards to my Facebook use, it was slightly more difficult to monitor as I access my account the majority of the time through my IPhone. It was difficult in the sense that often times it is absent minded browsing through the news feed to 'fill a gap' in my day. This of course is part of the revolution in smart phone technology that has almost caused me to fuse my phone to my hand at all times.

I am always appreciative of interesting stories that go viral via Facebook as it makes this browsing more purposeful.  I can see the benefit of having more than one Facebook account to perhaps cater to different information I look to receive, however for now I sit in the 95.8% of the class who have 1 account.  I would also be interested to know what the motives are for the 3.0% and 0.6% who do have multiple accounts.

Although I had one blog before the commencement of this course, I am beginning to see changes in the usage of my blogging since blogging more frequently as a part of JOUR1111. In fact, I noticed on the graph of my media usage, that my time spent blogging and my time spent on Facebook are beginning to correlate. I see this as a valuable skill to develop to train myself into linking all of my streams of media together to use them all cohesively. 

Figure 2: Condensed graph of media use over 1 day 

Figure 2 depicts my media usage over 1 day and correlates with the 10 day recordings of my usage. From the condensed graph I can draw the conclusion that the major part of my media usage is focused around mass media, as TV (23%) and Web Browsing (19%) are consistently the highest percentages. I, like much of my cohort, are on the bandwagon with a generation of social net-workers and am taking part in interpersonal and group media, shown here in the graph through my Facebook usage (16%).  As I learn more about the connectedness of various social forums, I predict that my Blogger and Twitter usage will increase rapidly. The 8% news usage is something I want to pay conscious attention to. As I stated before I am aware that my web browsing and news intake somewhat merge, however I do not want to lose connections to legacy media and will endeavor to draw some of my media usage from mediums such as newspapers. On a further note, I noted through the class survey that my radio listening is far less than the average. My radio use has previously been a part of my media intake when I drove a car, however now that I am not driving It has dropped to almost no radio intake at all.

 

From the class survey undertaken and the data of my media use, it is very apparent that we are following or perhaps to an extent leading our media usage to online realms. This is something that is reflected in my personal interactions with journalism and how I communicate and if further mirrored in the industry itself, as we see our new forums change.