Media Diary Assignment

The table below is my personal media diary over two weeks. I collected the times that I spent viewing today’s most popular media outlets which are television, the internet, mp3 players, and paper. I split the internet column into two parts: traditional internet usages such as emails, blogs and websites; and the second part were social media, YouTube and Face book.

At the end of the two weeks and looking back of the usage, it is very easy to establish where most of my personal time is spent, however, this table is also indicative of the new trends used by society to acquire news. Personally, I can only speculate (having no personal experience as I was only a glint in my father’s eye) that in the mid 1970’s when TV was starting to become an established and a easier method to obtain the news of the day was by the newspaper. However, this has radically changed in the 21^st century and the newspaper has become almost a “dead” media because compared to the internet and TV, the newspaper can only deliver the news once a day while television and the internet is spontaneous. My pattern in the two week period relied heavily on television and traditional internet usages, because of work and study which today realised heavily on the internet, and also personal time which usually was watching TV.

The question, “What does this say about your relationship to Journalism and Communication?” was given to me to respond to in this assignment. I can say categorically that I stayed updated with journalism and communication which again raises the topic of the internet and television. This can be reflected on the amount of time that I spent watching informational news programs, and reading the news on the internet and smart phone. Combined this was 807 minutes, 13.45 hours or 10.10% of my recorded media life over two weeks devoted to news.

Personally, I enjoyed reading what I call the “dead” media i.e. the newspaper early in the morning. It would be the first thing I did before I left the house or went to work which enabled me to be informed of Australian and world current events. During the course of the day I would check the internet for the latest news.

The two weeks in which I recorded my media life showed me how much I rely upon getting new journalism and communication news through outlets such as the internet and TV. However, it has also showed me how much time I wasted watching scripted television. Nonetheless,  I have come to the conclusion that due to the internet and television I am able to keep up-to-date with world and local current events as they occur because as soon as the event takes place it is only a matter of minutes before it is posted on the internet or reported on television news. Also that today's society is more up to date with events, not just in the nation but also in the world as reports are able to upload their story right on to the internet where we, the public is then able to read  their story in a matter of minutes.