Personal Media Use and Production Diary

My Media usage during the course of ten days

Raw Data:

From first glance at the table and graph above (Table One and Figure One), it is evident that my youtube minutes are the most frequent, regular and long. On the other hand, there is a distinct lack of magazines in my media usage and almost no newspapers and radio.

Old Media/Traditional Media

In comparing old and new media usage and production in table two and figure two, my media consumption is plainly skewed towards new media and nowhere near as much usage of old media. However, there is a surge in my old media use between days 6 and 9 although my usage and production of new media stays relatively the same.

Weekend/Weekday

Contrary to the outcome expected, the figures 3 and 4 indicate that there is not a great difference within my media usage and production between weekends and week days. However, this brings into question whether my living environment effects my media usage.

At College/At my Grandparents house

I was at the college for Days 1-5 and 10, and at my Grandparent’s house through the Days 6-9. 

According to figures 5 and 6, it can be observed that there is a significant change in my media usage and production in terms of old and new media depending on my living conditions and environment.

Audio/Print/Visual

Here, also, contrarily to my previous predictions, it appears that I have a much higher usage of audio media, rather than print media, of which I have 29% in and visual media which I have only 5% in. This is probably brought about by the fact that audio media does not require as much concentration as the other two forms of media, for me anyways, and therefore can be multitasked to. For example, when I read the newspaper, I generally just read the newspaper, but when I listen to the radio, it is going to and from somewhere.

Formal Analysis:

Within my own personal media usage, there is a significant abundance of the use of new media to produce media through social networking than the intake of media through the old media. With the new media, Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, there are significantly more opportunities for being creative in media production for non-professional people like myself. However, this media usage was influenced mildly by the weekend of weekday question, but heavily by the environmental living conditions I was in. I usually live at a college on campus with 200 other girls my age with whom I interact every day. In this environment, I definitely use more new media than old media (see figures 5), however with my grandparents who were brought up in a generation in which they only had access to old media, I still use new media but interact much more than I normally would with old media – which I enjoy. There is less access to old media at college unless it is in a public place, such as the common room which houses the television and newspapers. I also discovered that I use a larger amount of audio media compared to visual and print media, but this is due to the fact that I can listen to media through youtube or the radio without having to concentrate too much, but cannot do this with the other forms of media. Therefore, I listen to audio media whilst doing other tasks and accumulate more time for the media use there. Also, with convenient audio and visual media in youtube and other such sites on the internet, it is much easier to choose what we as an audience want to hear or learn about and design our own form of communication, rather than the traditional rigid structure of radio and television, where you can only watch or listen to what is chosen to be shown to you. However, this is not always a positive development as I, personally, learn more from the journalism in traditional media especially because I cannot choose what I want to learn about, and as a result learn a lot about everything. And so although the new media such as youtube can be a brilliantly convenient way to reorganise communication and journalism, it cannot replace the traditional media as there is so much to be gained by having professionals judge what you should and should not need to know.

In comparison to other journalism students, I am in the majority for most of the categories, starting with the basics: an 18year old female in a Bachelor of Journalism and Arts as a domestic student. I spend roughly about 2-3 hours a day on the internet which is the same amount of time 29.6% of the people in my course spend on the internet. As with most other students, I create media through social networking with new media. I watch less than one hour on average of television a day and the same for radio, which puts me with roughly 15% of the class. The reason for this could be that most students answered that they listen to radio most in the car, and as I live in a college and have just moved to Australia, do not have access to one. As I also have limited access to television, I fall under the 67.8% of the students who get their news from online sources rather than the majority which was via the internet.

Conclusion:

I am a sheep within a herd within media usage and production. I fit under the majority of the students in journalism, using mostly social networking and new media, producing media myself rather than absorbing journalism and communication though old media. However, this media usage and production is heavily influenced by factors such as environmental change, and I cannot disregard old media despite the new age because traditional media offers a wider range of journalism and information on more issues, whereas new media allows for us to pick-and-choose the information we want to know. In this way, I have to have a balance between these two forms of media, old and new, so that I take the greatest advantage of the media available to me and gain better access to journalism and communication.  

Story Pitches

So here is my draft for my three story pitches for my first project for JOUR1112. AGHSGJ. 

News Story:

Kony 2012 Cover the night

I am going to write a story about the current “Kony 2012” craze by covering  the “Cover the Night Brisbane” on the 20^th of April in Queen St. I will interview a random sample of people participating about why they are there, how they found out about this project and what they plan to do after this night, and at least one organiser of the event to see whether the two groups of people’s objectives align as well as consulting the official website. As this story has spread through social networking like an epidemic, the audience will be familiar with the story and relate to it, especially as I will be taking it to a local level.

Information Story:

Live Below the Line

My information story will inform the audience about the “Live Below the Line - May 7^th to the 11^th” project by the Oaktree foundation where people all around the world will be living on 2 dollars a day for 5 days to raise money for charity and to increase awareness about the extreme poverty line. I will read the official website for background knowledge and interview a girl at my college, Aislinn Teixeira, who is part of this foundation. I have also organised an interview with the Queensland LBL Campaign Manager for insights into the organisation and what the audience can do to participate.

Human Interest Story:

Local Brisbane Writers

My human interest piece will celebrate local writers, in anticipation of the “Brisbane Writers Festival 2012” from September 7^th to the 11th. I will write about the national and global achievements of local Brisbane writers and talk to the literature department at the University of Queensland for insight into what makes Brisbane writers successful and interview the organizers of this future event to get some inside information for members of the audience interested in local literature and in going to the event to find out more. 

Word Count: 326

Let Them do the Talking

(Week Five "Audio Lecture")
Interestingly, our lecture today was solely an audio lecture. At first the mp3 file wouldn't play on my computer so I was having a miniature heart attack but thankfully in this day and age, my smartphone was able to download it and play it instantly.

Living in Tokyo for the past 9 years of my formal education, ad not having very much reason to access the radio at all, I found the radio podcasts very interesting. When I made the move to Hawai'i in July of last year, I moved from my public world of subways and into the private world of cars, and in doing so changed my transportation occupation from reading novels to listening to the radio. That is not to say that people in Japan don;t listen to radio that much, because they do, my mother and my grandfather both listen to it regularly. My mother when attending to things around the house and, in fact, my Ojiisan (grandfather) only bought his television set a couple of years ago. Until then he had always access the media via his little black radio. It always mystified me when I visited him in Nagoya every few years. My Ojiisan would sit under his kotatsu with his eyes closed from early in the morning, just immersing himself in the news. Then he would get up and start moving all around the house, doing things here and there, still listening to the news. I thought, if he could listen to it while doing other things, why did he sit there with his eyes closed so early in the morning doing nothing else? 

Well, these podcasts sure cleared that question up.The first interviewee mentioned that radio was much more intimate with the audience, they felt as if the voice was resounding within their own head. I think that was what my Ojiisan was feeling, closing his eyes, letting himself drown in the events unfolding around the world. But then, as the man said, radio also is something that people can multitask to, because it is very straight forward, void of most flowery language, giving us facts rather than analysis. This our minds can pick up without thinking too much and we can do other hands-on tasks as well and be productive. However, I think that anything more complicated that everyday duties would be difficult with the radio on, having to concentrate on more than just the words in your mind. 

The most interesting thing about these two podcasts were that the two people, in two different interviews on the same topic, agreed on two major factors in radio journalism that I had never thought about before. These are at the interviewer should never dominate the conversation. They should  be able to distance themselves and let their interviewee do the talking. The other thing was that, when the former happens, usually the most interesting points would come up. I had previously been under the impression that the most interesting points happen when the interviewer know the right questions and probe it out of the guest, however, this podcast made me realize that the most interesting events happen when the interviewed is feeling comfortable and is able to give themselves over to points they may not have discussed otherwise. 

I cannot wait to listen to more radio from now on and listen, really listen, to how people conduct interviews and see whether these two epiphanies differentiate the "bad" interviews from the "good". In fact I cannot wait to start listening to more radio full stop. 

And I think it worth mentioning that although my Ojiisan did succumb to the modern tradition of television, his go-to media is and always will be his little black radio. 

I LOVE RM

I'm sure everybody has their reasons for being where they are today, some deeper, seemingly more profound then others. Me, my reason can be summed up in two names: Rick Mereki and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Today I'm going to have a little rant about Mereki.

When I saw Rick Mereki's short films Eat, Move and Learn half a year ago, I was moved. I first saw it when somebody reblogged Move on tumblr, without a source or link, or any information even what I knew how to trace to find out what the video was. It was only last month that I stumbled across the video again through vimeo and found the source.

Having traveled and lived a nomadic existence since, well, since I came into existence eighteen years ago, this film helped to give me a new outlook on my life. There have been times where I have wanted to be grounded to one home, to have friends for more than a couple years at a time, to know the city I was in better then the back of my hand. 

But this video reminded me that I wouldn't exchange the experiences I have had for anything in the world, and this realization pushed me into the world of international journalism I am exploring now, and to move to yet another country for the third time within a year: Australia. 

Let me get to my point: For our third journalism assignment, the factual storytelling project, I would like to write a story on him. His contact details conveniently happen to be on his vimeo page and though I know this assignment is due in May, I wanted to get a head start with getting permission for an interview and such and learning as much about him as I possibly could without actually talking to him first. It doesn't help that I am currently on my third draft for the email I was going to send asking whether I could interview him and a member of his crew, and in what form. 

I almost wish I had chosen to write about someone who had not had such a personal impact on me and my life, but I feel now as if that would be running from what I really want to do; hiding in my comfort zone. 

Join me now in re watching his videos for the millionth time. 

Picture This!

(Week Four "Factual Stories with Pictures")
"A picture has no meaning at all if it can't tell a story," to borrow the words of a famous photojournalist. This week, our lecturer held our hands as we dipped our toes into the vast world of photojournalism, rich with subtleties, subtext and intuition. 

(Eetu Sillanpaa, 2008)

We were introduced to a few great examples of photojournalism today, though none had as great an impact on me as the photograph above. The composition of the figures in a pyramid formation, combined with the skewed stance in accordance with the rule of thirds lead the viewers eyes to see and linger upon each the faces and see the mixture of emotions these children are expressing. Ominous clouds in the background juxtaposed with the image of innocence that come through with the vivid colours of the subjects clothes give the image a hyper-real feel, as if it was too much to have actually happened, reflecting the confusion on the children's faces; grounded however by the presence of the serious looking adults in the background. Every element to this image just adds to the power of of the message it conveys. It draws you in and makes you feel. Trust me, I could go on and on about hat makes this image absolutely fantastic to me but I shall rein my inner IB art student for the time being.  

What I'd like to make a special shout out to is the Rule of Thirds. 

I wanted to see exactly how pronounced an impact this technique has on an image and so at Max Brenna's I decided to put it into practice and capture the chocolately delight of the hug-mug hot chocolate. 

What do you think?

I love that journalism is a whole mixture of the arts, of writing, visual arts, sound that come together to create a practical something that can do a whole spectrum of things, from educating people, to entertaining people. 

Oscar Wilde once said, "All art is quite useless." As much as I love and respect this man, I strongly disagree with this statement and journalism is the living proof that art can be and is useful. 

Video Games + A Dash of Journalism

(Week Three Lecture "What is Text?")
Today we welcomed an amazing guest lecturer, Skye Doherty, and explored the world of the written word. She emphasized that text was essentially the "backbone of journalism". Much of what she taught us was technical, useful information that will help me all throughout my journalism career. However, what most interested me about her lecture was about a new form of journalism that Ms. Doherty was exploring at the moment which I had never heard of or even imagined before: Gaming Journalism.
My first reaction was basically "what?". I understood that there was basic interaction involved but that was all I thought there could be to it, until she actually showed us one.
We played an online journalism game called Cutthroat Capitalism where a journalist had condensed his research into the economics of Somalian pirates into a game to make the content more accessible to the viewer.     I was profoundly moved by this idea that journalism was now responding to so many of the needs of the audience, presenting information in ways beyond the set traditions of journalism in order to reach out to as many people as possible.
Even I who had never played a video game in my life found interest in this sort of journalism, imagine the reaction of all those gamers out there?

The Jelly Bean Phenomena

(Week Two Lecture "New News")
So today we were introduced to what I would like henceforth to call: "The Jelly Bean Phenomena".
In line with what we talked about last week, we looked further into types of media and journalism and the effect they have on each other during our second lecture. With traditional media (television, newspaper, radio, magazines) people had to pay to access their journalism, but with the advances in media and the development in new media (Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0), our audience gets access to their journalism for free. The Jelly Bean Phenomena is precisely what happens when we try to take this free journalism away from people.
What it all comes down to is entitlement.
Our lecturer, Mr. Bruce, gave us all a small packet of jelly beans.
He told us to take from it and eat.
We did.
Then he took our jelly beans away.
 We had possessed these jelly beans, held them in our warm sweaty hands, tasted their sickly sweet flavour, only to have them taken away. The one thought that tinted our minds collectively the same colour was the feeling that something we had a right to had been taken away from us. He had given us the jelly beans, had he not? What right had he to take that way?
Basically the Jelly Bean Phenomena was tasty way of explaining the problems with charging people for news that was once paid for and had become free. The question is, will people pay? Will the quality of journalism have to skyrocket for people to pay for it again? With audiences expectations rising and feelings of entitlement growing stronger, the future of journalism is covered in mist.
Will these jelly beans be the end of journalism as we know it? Stay tuned.

Dare-devil Spider, You

Ever since this morning, there has been a dangling spider along the hall somewhere. I have yet to formulate a suitable name for the darling thing, but I can tell that it is not quite a child but neither is it adult yet from the size of it. I reckon it must be a teenager. 

This morning it was just hanging precariously outside the door to my bedroom about 50cm from the roof from a flimsy little string. This is about head height for me some of my awkward dance moves to get in and out without a.) smashing into it and b.) moving the air around where it was floating so as not to send it spinning uncontrollably. Throughout the day, little spidy moved from place to place, hanging around recklessly, perhaps testing the view, before settling down near the fire alarm near the kitchen.

This dangling teenage spider reminded me of an article I read in The National Geographic a few months back called “The New Science of the Teenage Brain”. Now, this being said, it was an article about human teenagers, not spiders, but hey, how different can we be really? The article put forward a few scientific reasons for why teenagers do some crazy, seemingly senseless things, and concluded that it was a matter a evolution. Teenagers were crazy because they had to leave the comfort zone of their house and become adaptable to new situations.

This dangling teenage gypsy of a spider. Is it tragically self-centered to have thought to myself that it was merely placed there before my eyes today by the universe to remind me that a spider with a much much smaller brain than me was more adventurous: a truer human teenager than I?

I wish I was as reckless as my darling teenage gypsy spider.

What, or whom, is a Journalist?

(Week One Lecture: "Telling Factual Stories")
Is it rather a bit late to be asking this question, I wonder.
I love to write - this I knew. Armed with this highly intellectual thought, I took the leap to into the vast and complex world that is university life.  I walked into my first lecture JOUR1111 at 2pm on a Monday having chosen  to take a Bachelor of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts for the sole purpose of having some form of a career in mind for when I graduate from this degree, because, really, I had no idea what to do with my life. In fact, that has yet to really change.
Picture me now in your head, nervous as can be, walking into my first lecture thinking "at least this will probably get me a job", and then hearing within the first few minutes that journalism is facing a serious threat to the industry in the form of social media and citizen journalists.
Bloody citizen journalists. And there I was thinking I would actually get paid for writing. In actuality, I simply had not yet grasped the concept of user generated content at all. I was sitting there thinking, how am I supposed to try and get a job, when people out there are doing the same thing, if not even better, for free.
The thought shocked me back into reality and I realized I had chosen this degree for all the wrong reasons, thinking about jobs was all well and good, but the reason I came out of my first lecture happy as a lamb was not because I was going to get paid for writing one day but because I really enjoyed the lecture. I realized I had not considered the vital question yet; what it meant to be a journalist in the big wide world, and maybe, it's too early to be pondering such big questions.
What I need to do for now is keep on writing - it is the one thing my head and my heart agree upon, and maybe, just maybe, somewhere along the way I'll discover what it really means to be a journalist.

But alas, I cannot blog

Or so I thought. The mindless minutes I have spent over this past week attempting to create a blog have not gone unrewarded, and here we have the beginnings of what is to become my humble abode; a place to lay out my head; where my coffee stained hours of sleep will have rendered my mind helpless; for my thoughts to finally trickle out of ears and though my fingers onto the internet where they always belonged. Bear with me as I wonder from place to place, from time to time, and ultimately from thought to thought to discover just a fraction of who I am and whom I might become.
Though the road may be long, god forbid it be dreary!