Assessment One - Media Use Diary

For this assessment we have been asked to record a diary of our daily media use for ten days. Below is my personal media usage presented in a table and recorded in minutes:

Types of Media		Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Total
Internet	Uni	30	25	35	0	15	0	40	20	20	15	200
Social Networking	Facebook	45	50	30	50	45	25	55	45	20	25	390
	Twitter	0	10	0	0	5	0	0	10	0	0	25
Blogging	Tumblr	25	15	30	0	45	15	35	15	0	10	190
	Blogspot	20	0	0	10	0	0	0	15	0	10	55
	Youtube	30	0	20	15	20	0	40	10	0	5	140
Reading	Magazines	0	0	0	20	0	0	0	0	0	0	20
	Newspapers	15	10	10	0	10	15	15	0	10	15	100
	Novels	30	45	20	50	15	60	40	20	20	30	330
	Uni	60	20	15	0	20	10	0	60	20	0	205
Mobile Phone		15	10	10	15	5	10	0	5	5	10	85
Television		0	10	0	30	0	20	30	0	0	0	90
Radio		0	0	0	15	10	10	20	0	0	0	55

To present this information in a more comprehensible format, I have constructed a pie chart to represent the different sections of media and my usage of them in percent form:

As it can be seen in the above pie chart, internet is my most utilized form of media at 53%. This is unsurprising as I’m completely aware of my internet addiction. Reading comes in second with 35% and then Television, Mobile Phone and Radio at 5%, 4% and 3% respectively. My mobile phone usage is also not surprising as I don’t often use my phone – in any case I lose it in the folds of my blanket or the dark abyss that is my bag for the majority of the day. This is probably because, unlike 88.3% of my JOUR1111 peers, I do not possess an enabled Smart Phone. However I am not quite so exclusive in the way of my television watching or internet use, most of the cohort watching 1-2 hours or less a day whilst the majority of the cohort spends at least 2-3 hours online.

In order to define my internet usage I have constructed an even further refined pie chart, as seen below: 

It can be seen here that I am more than keeping within the confines of my age group’s stereotype, nearly half of my internet usage being that of Facebook. This is also true for a high percentage of my peers, 96.8% of them having at least one Facebook account and 91.9%  admitting that they spend most of their time on Facebook when online. It can also be seen that over Tumblr and Blogspot, blogging rakes in around 32% of my time on the internet. This is because I also have a blog on Tumblr that was established prior to JOUR1111 and hence maintaining it takes up quite a bit of my internet time and also makes me within the 9.7% of my cohort with two blogs. I also often read others blogs including several Photojournalism blogs; this may imply that my relationship to Journalism and Communication is more online orientated than my peers.

 Unfortunate and predictable, Twitter only makes up a measly 3% of my internet time. This is because, however much I try, I have not really been able to grasp the “Tweeting” concept yet and I fear for the worst as the Journalism world, in its eternal hunger for faster and faster news, turns to twitter and I am left behind in the dust with my newspaper. However I am not alone, as the statistics show that 70.8% of the cohort did also not possess a twitter account before JOUR1111. Moreover, it can be seen that 51.6% of my peers also obtain a percentage of their daily dose of news from a newspaper, though I believe it to be inevitable that this statistc shall decrease in the future as news/journalism becomes more online based. All in all, I believe my relationship with Journalism and Communication is quite internet based but also slightly hybrid between that of the internet and other forms of media, and through the statistics it can be seen that this is also quite congruent with the media usage of my peers. Furthermore, I also believe that the Digital Age and New Media shall slowly but radically change the way we obtain our news but also the way journalists provide it and I look forward to somehow being a part of this much anticipated revolution.