Personal Media Use and Production Diary - Essay Example

Personal Media Use and Production Diary Analyzing my Media Preferences The media production and use affects our daily life. Most people tend to depend on the media for entertainment as well as updated on the happenings around the globe. With continued expansion of different forms of media, people are increasingly spending time on different forms of media, particularly the social media. In contemporary society, media plays a major role in shaping the social life since most people rely on it to make friend and keep in touch with friends and family (Rahman, Hani, Abdin, Mahmud, & Rosli, Web). As a journalism student, the way I make use of the media determines how well I am informed on the happenings around the word and how effectively I can affect such happenings. Over a period of four days, I recorded the time spent on the different form of media. After which I recorded the findings in a table below. Prior to this exercise, I had never contemplated on the amount of time I spent on different forms of media. I often listen to the radio as I drive but I had never assumed that I spent such an amount of time on the radio. I realized that I often use social particularly Facebook to keep in touch with my friend. This s mainly because I have quite a tight schedule and rarely get time to meet each of them individually. On the other hand, I realized that most of the calls I make are to my family members. The results for the four days were as displayed in figure 1 below Figure 1 Time in Minutes Type of Media Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Total Time in Minutes Facebook 80 120 100 60 360 Blog 15 O 20 0 35 Radio 30 40 35 50 155 Twitter 20 0 10 15 45 Magazines 15 O 0 0 15 TV 100 80 60 70 310 You Tube 25 10 0 15 50 Phone 60 70 100 90 320 Internet 30 25 40 60 155 Skype 0 15 20 5 40 Newspapers 0 0 15 0 15 IPod 50 20 25 0 95 Figure 2 Figure 2 is a chart representing the time spent on the different media. The vertical axis shows the time spent in minutes while the horizontal axis shows the use of different media types for the different days. Analysis of my Media Use and Production Diary Media production is the measure of the time spent on different media to produce or develop something. In the contemporary society, social media has become one of the commonest means of communication that many people including the journalist are increasingly adopting (medialiteracyproject.org Web). Many media houses often release their updates through social networks such as Facebook and twitter. As demonstrated on the chart labeled figure 2, Facebook, phone, TV, and radio are my most preferred media types. Although TV and Radio are amongst the oldest types of media, they are still commonly used for informative as well as entertainment purposes. I tend to watch TV a lot. This is because I usually relax and watch TV after school in addition to the time spent with the family as we watch the news. Additionally, I tend to watch a lot of movies different television Networks. I rarely rent movies but I often find myself switching from one television network to another in search of good movies. The data in the figure one shows my great dependence on Facebook as my social networking site. I tend to use Facebook to keep in touch with friends. Additionally, I find Facebook to be quite informative since friend from all over the globe update what is happening in their vicinity. Additionally, chatting with friends helps me to learn of happenings in their life when I cannot create time to be with them. Skype is a feature I often use with Facebook since it makes me feel like I have meet my friends when I video call them. When I am away from home, I tend to call my parents on the phone to inform them of my whereabouts particularly when I have to hang out with friends other than go home early. Additionally, I was amazed by the number of messaged I send in a day. Though not recorded in the table, I realized that I send about 50 messages on my phone. This is quite a high number considering that I also send many other messages while chatting. I mainly send messages when I want to communicate information that I do not want everyone around me to hear. Were it not for provision of unlimited messages, I realized I would spend quite a lot of money on messages. I also realized that quite a number of my classmates, particularly those who are my friends tend to send me many of the messages I receive. Though twitter is a common social network that some of my friends use, I tend to spend less time on twitter. I only follow updates on factors such as health from certain organization that I have subscribed. Radio is another media that takes a lot of my leisure time. I love listening to music from my radio as I drive. This is because the music tends to be dynamic and I can tune to different stations to listen to different type of music. Additionally, the radio tends to be informative of happenings around the globe. This is important since I cannot stick to the TV all the time for such updates. In addition to watching the family television, I also stream into different stations using my laptop. You tube is an additional media I use from time to time. Some time back, I used to spend considerable time downloading songs from you tube but when I bought my IPod. Internet is another media that I often use. This is often for study purposes particularly when d0wnloading academic materials I tend to use considerably less time since I prefer downloading the materials to read at my own time and pace. I had previously thought that I spent a lot of time on internet, but I was amazed by the findings on the four days. However, the findings might not reflect my internet usage appropriately since diary include two of the days when I was not doing any assignment since they were not school days. I tend to blog from time to time but I normally do not spend much time on this. One thing I realized is that I spend considerably less time on printed media. This is demonstrated by a total of 30 minutes that I spent on magazines and Newspapers for the four days. I think it is because I either tend to read most of the stuff that interests me from the social networks or listen from the radio and television. I mainly read newspapers when I notice something interesting. With the modern technology, I realize that it was not just me but most of my peers rarely read printed materials. I think the only printed material I spend time on is my academic books. After analyzing the results on my media usage, I wondered how my life would be without devices such as phone, IPod, laptops just to mention but a few. The field of Journalism is continuously evolving and people are increasingly becoming dependent on new media types (Mabry Web). Although I spend quite a lot of time on TV and radio, which are considered old types of media, most of my friends are addicted to social media. Even in my case, Facebook tends to be the most informative site. TV and Radio are mainly for entertainment purposes. Works Cited Mabry, Emily. Engaging Audiences:An Analysis Of Social Media Usage In Advertising. May 2010. Web. 19 Sep 2012 . Medialiteracyproject.org. Introduction to Media Literacy. 2011.Web. 19 Sep 2012 . Rahman, Omar, et al. Visualizing Patterns of Online Media Preference Based on Young Adults Lifestyle. 2011. Web. 19 Sep 2012 . Read More