Media Use and Production Diary

Click-y click.

Whenever I sit in Central Station, I notice the people surrounding me absolutely enthralled with their smart phones. Judging by these behaviours, I imagine that they too would be surprised with their amount of media usage...

So, what was it that surprised me?

The interesting perception I made was as I used media I was usually multitasking. Most frequently I found myself on Facebook and “studying” at the same time.
Surprisingly, I was so interested in my own habits that I started the assessment again (I know, crazy right?!).
 I divided my media use and production diary into whole hours spent using media platforms (whole hours out of my entire day) and underneath I recorded the amount of time I was spending using particular media on those platforms (including hours multitasking).

Media usage measured in hours over 10 days

Media Used	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	TOTAL
Desktop Computer  Study  Online Newspaper  Facebook  Tumblr  Emails  General Web Browsing  Blogger  Twitter	2 1 0.25 1.5 1 0.25 0.5 0 0	1 0.25 0 0.5 0.5 0.25 0.5 1 0.5	3 1 0.5 2 1 0 1 1 0.25	3 1.5 0 2 0.5 0.5 1 0 0.25	1 0 0 0.5 0 0 1 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	2 1 0.5 1.5 0.5 0.25 1 0.5 0.25	1 0.5 0 1 0.5 0 0 0 0	13 5.25 1.25 9 4 1.25 5 2.5 1.25
Laptop Computer  Study  Online Newspaper  Facebook  Tumblr  Emails  General Web Browsing  Twitter	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	3 2 0.5 2 1 0.5 1 0.25	4 2.5 0.5 3 2 1 1.5 0.25	4 3 1 3 1 0 2 0.5	5 3 1 3 2 1 2 0	2 1 0 1 0.5 0.25 0.5 0	1 0 0.25 0.5 0.25 0.25 1 0	19 11.5 3.25 12.5 6.75 3 8 1
Smart Phone  Calls  Texting  Games  Facebook	2 0.5 0.75 0.5 0.25	3 1 1 0 1	1 0 0.5 0 0.5	4 2 1 0.5 0.5	2 0 0.5 0.5 1	1 0.5 0.25 0 0.25	2 1 0.5 0.25 0.25	1 0 0.5 0 0.5	2 1 0.5 0.5 0	1.5 0 0.5 0.5 0.5	19.5 6 6 2.75 4.75
Television  News Broadcasts  Leisure Shows	2 1.5 0.5	2 1 1	1.5 1 0.5	2 1 1	3 1 2	3 1 2	1 0.5 0.5	2 1 1	3 1 2	2 1 1	21.5 10 11.5
Radio  News Broadcasts  Leisure shows	0 0 0	0 0 0	1 0.5 0.5	0 0 0	0.5 0.5 0	0 0 0	0 0 0	0 0 0	0.5 0.25 0.25	0 0 0	2 1.25 0.75
Newspaper  Local  State	0 0 0	0 0 0	0 0 0	1 1 0	0 0 0	0 0 0	0.5 0 0.5	0 0 0	0 0 0	1 1 0	2.5 2 0.5

Basically, I use a lot of media on a daily basis. I use my desktop computer, laptop and smart phone more than radio and newspaper. While the television is in use for the most amount of hours, I never used it as a primary media source. I found from the total time on certain platforms, I am a true procrastinator.


Separately I recorded hours spent producing content. 

My total media use compared to media production in units of hours

On these websites that allow for production elements, my graph demonstrates I am active in my internet usage.


The most prominent conclusions I came to from my own and the cohort's media habits were:

•  New Media of the internet and smart phones is in, while old media of newspapers are fading out
• Facebook really is taking over our lives
• The immediate accessibility of the internet had both negative and positives

The shift to New Media

Breakfast and dinner with my partner is spent in front of the TV watching news. My results emphasise the amount of time I spent on the internet across various platforms. 79% of JOUR1111 students, including myself, watch less than 2 hours of television a day. Since an average newscast is 1 hour, we can assume, television is in most cases used where we can leave the TV playing in the background, until an important story comes on. The lack of use of radio suggests the same, with 82.9% listening in the car. These old media platforms are now used when convenient whilst we’re engaging in other primary activities. 

The television is still powerful for Journalism, being the main source of News (however, closely followed by Facebook with 48.4% of students) but no longer regarded by a majority as a strong ‘leisure activity’.

Power of social networking

When comparing my results to the rest of the class, I am average in most areas. I have a few different types of social networking sites and blogs, making my internet usage across platforms somewhat excessive. However, what the survey failed to find out was the frequency in which the class happened to log in and check their Facebook accounts. And this was where I must call myself, an ‘addict’. I found interesting statistics that sum up my own usage as a 19 year old pretty accurately:

http://www.flowtown.com/blog/are-we-addicted-to-social-media

I am an avid Facebook consumer, but even more as shown in my graph, I am a Facebook producer. I am engaged in many “Groups” and “Pages” which I am constantly updating and creating comments, photos and messages.
I had no idea I relied so heavily on Facebook, for sharing personal news as well as world news.
Facebook is rapidly growing to be a huge part of Journalism and Communication, whether we like it or not.

Wonders of accessibility

With 77.3% of students using an internet enabled smart phone, we have the ability to constantly be on the internet. Since I bought a smart phone, my media use has at least doubled. Just like the people at Central, we never want to do nothing, because we have the ability to do almost anything.
The positives, however, of the media I could interact with, over 50% overall of my time was spent producing, not just consuming. With new media I am an active member of the online community, something I would never do if it was limited to Newspaper.

What does this mean for journalism?

I asked myself why this was happening and came to the conclusion that these 3 trends are entirely related.

• The rise in technology has created a surge in ‘citizen journalists’ and the immediate availability of news and entertainment on the internet has decreased the need for old media.
• Wifi has enabled the use of smart phones or laptops virtually anywhere meaning an increase in use, and subsequent increase in online media use and production.
• Social Media has penetrated the traditional media types for journalism and communication. Alushka Rajaram of socialmedianews.com says “turn your Television on to any given News channel during a breaking news story and you’ll be greeted with information from Facebook and Twitter at least every hour”. 
• Not only is the frequency in which these platforms are updated far more impressive than old media, but being able engage in discussion and create content on your own, certainly has a strong appeal, adding to the great appeal of social networking for news.

The Guardian article “Mobile and the news media's imploding business model” suggests there is a “bleak or non-existent future for news professionals in a mobile-dominated world” as the shift to online media has subsequently lead to the loss of profit in Journalism industry, and looking at my results alone, I can completely see why.


Let’s just say after this investigation to my own Media habits, I’ll be putting my computers down for longer, and buying newspapers more frequently…

(Even more fun statistics about social media's impact on the world here.)

Factual Story Telling - Text

Lecture Week 3 - 12/3/12

Power of the Word

The written word is more important than one might realise when it comes to text in media. Especially when it comes to online text.

We all know what text is: fast, flexible, searchable and retrievable.
And by now we all are very familiar with the format of the 'inverted pyramid' 

A perfect example of the 'inverted pyramid' for news stories
http://www.writerspulse.org/2008/09/tackling-inverted-pyramid.html 

The importance of addressing who, what, where, when, why and how could be the difference between a successful story, and one that is a flop. In traditional newspaper, the Poynter eyetrack shows that headlines will most often draw the eye first, especially when is upper left, which further emphasises the importance of understanding the inverted pyramid. If your story is not applicable to the headline in the first sentence, you will lose you audience.

While researching other trends discovered through other studies conducted by Poynter, I found an article by Rick Edmonds, "6 trends for newspapers in 2012, from a Sunday boom to an executive bust".

The article outlines 2 major trends facing Newspapers today: 

1. " Through the first three quarters of 2011, print advertising losses outweighed digital ad gains by a ratio of 8 to 1. Then digital growth slowed in the last quarter of 2011, making the gap for the full year even worse, 10 to 1. Talk about trading print dollars for digital dimes."
2. "In an October earnings report, Google broke out for the first time, how much of its revenue came from mobile advertising: $2.5 billion worldwide in 2011. That caused e-Marketer to raise its previous estimate of the total U.S. mobile ad market by a factor of 50 percent. Analysts expect Google’s mobile revenue to rise to $4 to $6 billion this year."

Basically, newspapers are struggling more than ever, while Google is using the shift to online media skillfully and effectively to reap the benefits.

The power of the internet has already forced traditional newspapers to change their ways, investing in platforms for mobile phones, tablets, and searching for unaccustomed ways in which to regain lost profits. But it's not all necessarily a bad thing.

As outlined in our lecture, online media is incredibly progressive. Hypertext allows for the construction of non-linear narratives, the ability to explore different components of the same story and even follow your mind's stream of consciousness and discover other stories.

Having worked for an online marketing agency briefly in 2011, I can't help but think of SEO  (search engine optimisation) when it comes to the power of online text. Key words are important, as it all counts to your ranking on Google, and we all know the power that Google currently has (especially with revenue like last year!). 

Searching for revenue of Google the past year, I found this lovely image, followed by a wonderful  article outlining Google's 2010 revenue, found here.

For more information on SEO strategies, or digital marketing Advia, a Brisbane based online marketing agency has a great blog you can follow here.

- Emmerleener

"New News"

Lecture Week 2 - 5/3/12

Welcome to the 21^st century...

The power of the internet allows for instantaneous access to a whole new world by the tips of our fingertips and with the click of a mouse.

But for me, the ‘New News’ covered in JOUR1111 Lecture week 2, doesn’t seem new at all... 

Yes, the internet is new. To put it into perspective, go back 70 years and we are marveled by the power of the Television at providing news straight to our living rooms. Keep travelling further back to 1891 and the creation of the radio baffles us. Journey back even further in time and the industrial revolution making news even easier and cheaper to access.

The above diagram gives a small indication of the growth of social media over the years.

You might wonder why then, if I am aware of the amazing technological changes the past 200 years, why I feel "New News" isn't new. For my generation, this is normal. We were brought up on constant technological changes. Even more interesting, is the internet has always been a part of our education and subsequently our lives. 

While the lecture went on to distinguish the differences between Web 1.0 (information web), Web 2.0 (the social web) and Web 3.0 (semantic web). While I actively participate in all these layers of the internet, it is considered to be normal for my generation. However, contemplating these 3 versions, I couldn't help but reflect upon them with the 'traditional media' types and categories these as they fit into something familiar...

• Old Media And Baby Boomers - reliable and what we know, stick to general structure, and appreciate rules and structure. As some would say, slowly becoming redundant.
•  Web 1.0 And Generation X - While some may be able to completely understand the conventions of 2.0, the majority struggle to comprehend a cyber-world full of hyperlinks and “likes”. 1.0 is straight forward and to the point. There is a need, and a click solves that problem.
• Web 2.0 And Generation Y -Brought up as the internet was integrated into our daily routines, we've adopted to social networking. From MySpace in High School to Facebook, we are Prod users, reflecting the very nature Generation Y are seen to behave. Studies indicate that in jobs, generation Y’s are unlikely to stay put in any careers. Just like web 2.0, if we are not getting something out of it ourselves, we will move on to the next company. 

Web 3.0 however is where I am astounded.  The semantic web focuses on the individual. No matter where you are or what you are doing, it’s all about “me”. While some people are afraid that this is more an invasion of privacy, I am looking bigger picture…

As in our first Lecture we are encouraged to ask the questions, why is something the way it is? Look at the story from different perspectives. All I can think of, is what does this mean for media users? When is it too much? When will we become entirely dependent on the internet to the point where web 3.0 users will no longer have the option of living without it, now it is totally mobile, and customized to the individual?

This prompted me to engage in a discussion with college of mine over the weekend who has a daughter in Generation Z. The discussion was incredibly interesting. For the first time there are 5 generations in Australia in the work force all at once. The differing upbringings in each of these cultures is easily internet accessibility. Web 3.0 and the focus on the individual has now prompted further focus shifts between other aspects of life. She comments that he daughter is incredibly different to Generation Y's, mostly commenting on the fact everything is about themselves first, and social order second. She used the examples that work will be fit around their social schedule, family is no longer seen as the most important thing in life, and the order of authority is no longer there. These were all values that have slowly been seen as less and less important as generations shift. 


While there is always change, it is inevitable, in the course of history it does not generally occur so quickly with varying generations all being alive at the same time.


But back to the impact this web 3.0 and it's generation will have on Journalists...


For journalists, there will always be stories that need to be recorded and shown to the world. The pressure will be greater than ever as something that might have a few hours to release a story will now only have a few minutes in order to “Break” the news. Take the KONY2012 campaign. If you were not the company breaking the news of the viral video, by the time everyone was home for their evening news, the story was old. 


But, I am more than ready for the challenge that awaits me.

(The Jelly Belly's were a nice addition to the lecture as well.)

-Emmerleener