JOUR1111 Assessment

Personal Media Use & Production Diary

With the recent explosion in social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogger, the correlation between social media and journalism has become much more apparent. These days, people are able to receive news from these social media sites. This has caused the so-called 'death of journalism'. It would, however, be more appropriate to call it the 'death of old media'. Out with the old, in with the new (media), I say! 

The JOUR1111 cohort was given the task of logging their personal media use over the course of ten days. Results of this log were then able to be compared with results of a cohort-wide survey undertaken by Dr Bruce Redman.

The following dossier will analyse my personal media use over the ten day period and determine my relationship with journalism and social media. It will also show how I compare with the rest of the JOUR1111 students' preferred use of media. Lastly the dossier will explain the relationship between today's journalism and social media.

Table 1 - Personal Media Use

This table shows my use of media over ten days (March 12th - March 21st). Please note that all times given are an approximation.

Graph A - Percentage of Total Media Use

This graph is a visual representation of my media use. It shows my preferred use of media in percentages of the total 62.35 hours that I spent using said media.

The graph reveals that Facebook was my preferred use of media, taking up 32.47% of my total media use. The next largest use of media was Skype, which was 21.92% of my media usage. Surprisingly, my third most popular use of media was watching News Programs, which was 16.23% of my total media use.

Table C - JOUR1111 Survey Results

This table illustrates the use of the same media that I utilised over the ten day period by the cohort of the JOUR1111 course. The results of the survey are mostly consistent with the findings of my ten day media use log; Facebook is the preferred use of media, along with Blogging and Skype. The difference between my media use and that of JOUR1111 was that they seemed to view a lot more Online News than myself.

Analysis

Should people be worried that a group of journalism students prefer to use Facebook than read Online News? I don't believe that this is necessarily a bad thing, considering most journalists have either a Facebook page or a Twitter account. The latter even allows them to constantly update audiences with breaking news in under 140 characters. The internet permits instant feedback from audiences for journalists, something that was impossible with 'old media' such as newspapers and magazines. Journalists also use social media as a tool to gather information' they can get the first scoop on a story if they come across a 'status' or a 'tweet' that is posted immediately as the event happens. 

As for my personal use of media, this log has really opened my eyes as to how much time I actually spend social networking. In the future I intend to cut down on my Facebook addiction and use the time to read more Online News, much like the cohort of JOUR1111.