Thursday, August 16, 2012

Personal Media Use and Production Diary

Introduction
This report investigate the media usage for journalism communication for young students by using the data collected from my media diary over a period of ten days and the survey result f Jour1111.

Table & Data
My Personal Media Use and Production 
  Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Day 6Day 7Day 8Day 9Day 10Avg duration
Media type  
print medianewspaper00000000000
 magazine00000000000
telecommunicationTV 0.5 hr1 hr2 hr 01 hr0.5 hr 0 hr2 hr0.5 hr1 hr0.85hr
radio0.5 hr0000000.5 hr00.5hr0.15 hr
New mediaBlog01 hr00.5 hr1hr 00001.5 hr0.4hr
E-mail0.5 hr000.5 hr01 hr 01hr00.5hr0.35 hr
Facebook1 hr2 hr0.5 hr1 hr0.5 hr2.5 hr1 hr0.5 hr1.5 hr0.5 hr1.1hr
Instant messaging002.5 hr00.1 hr0001hr00.36 hr
On-line Newspaper0.5 hr0.5 hr1 hr00.5 hr0.5 hr 1 hr0.5 hr0.5 hr0.5hr0.55 hr
Other surfing/browsing1 hr00.5 hr01 hr3 hr2.5 hr00.5 hr1 hr0.95 hr



The Media usage of Jour1111 class that is related to journalism communication
Paper Newspaper                                                                                            40.0%
Online "newspaper"                                                                                        78.2%
TV                                                                                                                    70.3%
Radio                                                                                                               42.4%
Twitter                                                                                                             17.0%
Facebook                                                                                                         61.2%
Reddit                                                                                                                7.3%
You Tube News Reporter                                                                                  5.5%
Street Press (eg MX)                                                                                         6.7%
Friends emails with links of interesting articles                                             10.9%
Other (please specify)                                                                                      2.4%



Analysis
Print Media
Both of the results of my media diary (0%) and the survey conducted within the class of Jour1111(3.6%) demonstrate that print media has the lowest usage rate in comparison with other media (99.2%). This is contributed by the nature of the inflexible communication format of print media that Chandler, Munday, Cinque and Gilroy have characterized. They pointed out that generally print media can only publish visual contents via physical material of ‘paper and ink’ periodically. Thus, the news distribution through print attracts more cost and does not allow instant respond from the reader and is greatly subjected to geographical location and time. Hence, according to Gilroy, the inconveniency of print media is especially undesirable for young people. This perspective coincides with the trend of the results of mine and Jour1111 class’s media usage. This behavior is contributed by our social status as young students. Firstly, since we are not financially wealthy (paying regular tuition fees, living expense and generally without a professional job), the price of print media product which is relatively more expensive when comparing to the almost free broadcasting media and new media is less economics for us. Secondly, as we have a full-on schedule of work and study, the print media which requires us to accommodate ourselves to its published time and the specific location for the release of product gives us less freedom in controlling the news communication to fit into our busy timetable. Consequently, this behavior suggests that print media’s attribute of lacking immediate availability is unsuitable for the lifestyle of young students. This evident that the news communication through print media is restricted by its nature of circulation and thus decreases young students’ desire to use it as it’s relatively inconvenient.

Broadcasting media
The usage of broadcasting media is the second common source for news communication for Jour1111 (30.6% ) class and I (21.23%). According to Cinque (2012), such usage pattern of broadcasting media is caused by the level of its availability and interaction between producer and audience when comparing to other media. When comparing to print media, the broadcasting media is more accessible as it is on offer 24/7 through signal and it is more responsive as it offers immediate interaction such as live call-in. However, the power holds by audience is less than new media as the news context is programmed by media institutions. Subsequently, the level of communication control broadcasting media offers influences our amour of its usage.
 Moreover, both the Jour1111 class and I receive news more often from TV than from radio. I get 18% of news from TV and 3% on radio while 70.3% of the Jour1111 class gets their news on TV and 42.8% on radio. This may because of that TV is a more attractive to us as it provides audio-visual text that allows more comprehensive information to be displayed when comparing to radio which only offers audio context. For example, the 7 news I watched would use videos, audios, photographs when reporting news while radio cannot provide this effect. Nonetheless, the radio is popular to be used in a car as 72.7% of the Jour1111 students reported this behavior. This is because pure audio context allows its audience to engage with it effortlessly as we hear things reflexly. Hence, radio provides ways for people to engage in news communication under mobility restricted conditions.

New Media
New media is the most common source used for journalism communication for both the Jour1111 class (55.3% of the total usage) and me (78% of the total usage). This data reflects the pattern of the increasing growth of new media that is identified by Chalkley. This pattern is contributed by the effectiveness of new media communication. The new media allows any digital context to be freely exchanged or created 24/7 via internet by anyone at anywhere. The new media is highly preferable as it’s “instantaneous, globally accessible, fast and efficient in passing news and information” (Cinque, 2012). Moreover, the amount of high usage of new media highly links to prevalence of internet access. The data of the place that most of the Jour1111 students (92.1%) and I can access internet is at home suggests this phenomenon. As internet become readily at home as a common possession, its availability is high for the users. Also, 47.3% of the Jour1111 class use internet by smartphone indicates that mobile internet access further enhances the usage rate of new media.The pattern of large number of students getting news from facebook and interent is identified. For me, I often use facebook at home and school to receive news from friends, world event or discounts in leisure. I preferred to use facebook because it updates frequently and provides a diverse news sources from media companies, citizen journalists and news from friends. Also, people can eliminate the display of uninterested news. Also, unlike tweeter, facebook has no word limit to enhance larger context to be displayed. As a result, our preference of using facebook reflects the pattern of the increasing media usage of semantics web which is hyperlocalisation. However, my media usage also reveals problems of that the news I received is thus restricted to a certain category and I take the risk of having a narrowing view and lack of general knowledge.
However, the reason why online newspaper is highly used my because of that most of them are free for immediate access online. Also, online newspaper present news as hypertext or hypermedia; the style of news convention that contains all sorts of material such as texts, images and videos within one converge and provides further link to other related online materials. Consequently, the practice of online newspaper impresses the audience with the comprehensiveness of its context.

Conclusion
Through the analysis of my and Jour1111’s media usage, it is found that the media that cost less and is more convenient attracts the highest usage rate.


Reference:
Oxford Dictionry
Comunication, New media and Everyday Life


 


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