A Little Update

Aaaalrighty. So at this stage I've submitted my first proper assessment for this subject! Media Use Diary is done :) I have my first mid-semester exam on Saturday for one of my Commerce subjects. It will be my first EVER uni exam so that is pretty nerve-wracking. And all the uni work is gradually starting to pile up but hopefully I'll be able to make it through...haha. After my tute for this on Tuesday afternoon I've been trying to think of topics for my Factual Storytelling Exercise. I'm pretty positive I'm going to use text but I just need someone to base that text on!

So an update on college life...food has continued to be great and I've been attempting to avoid the fresher spread by regular gym visits :) There is added motivation because my College Ball is coming up in less than a month! I've made such great pals here and at our 'brother college' so hopefully the year will continue in a positive way. College plans at the moment are perhaps a visit to the Broncos and Dragons game tomorrow night and a college 'exchange' on Saturday night. I'm struggling to maintain my work/life balance but I have no doubts that everyone is sitting in exactly the same boat.

SO, some news that gained my interest today was word of an all-girls Jewish school in New York banning their students from Facebook as it could go against the Jewish code of modesty. I found this quite extraordinary as it shouldn't be up to the school to tell girls what they can and can't do out of school! They should not be allowed to dictate the social life of these girls and prohibiting them from Facebook in such a social networking based world could do so much more harm than good. Take, for example, the low experience level the girls will have in this communication tool once they finish high school. I have no doubt that internet use will be growing exponentially and it would be such a disadvantage to the students not to have the core skills that their peers will possess. If you want to have a read of the actual news story just click here!

I'll probably write again on Monday, bye! :)

Repost of Lecture 1

Just thought I should split my Lecture 1 and 2 so here's Lecture 1, now on its own.

Lecture 1

‘You are the Journalist.’ The first lecture today pretty much just outlined the course and what we’ll be covering over the duration of JOUR1111. I feel like it’s going to be one of those courses that are worthwhile and after completing it I'll be look at everything in the media a little more critically. I will have a better understanding of what’s going on around me.

Dr. Redman made everyone feel at ease and as it was my first lecture EVER I’m not as apprehensive as I was before I entered the classroom. As of today, right after the lecture I’m still a bit unsure of what kind of stuff to blog about…Like the quotes and pictures made me think of the times that I heard big news stories breaking, for example Michael Jackson dying, Osama Bin Laden’s assassination, massacres all the world over and of course 9/11 which I remember vividly even though I was seven years old at the time. It seems that, “if it bleeds it leads” is true from my experiences.


I'd like to comment or at least reflect on each of the quotes Dr Redman included in this intro: 

• "Journalism is the first rough draft of history." Philip Graham - I like this one because it made me think of journalism in a completely different light. You usually just think of it as up to the minute but in reality, news will pass and be replaced. So to have been able to have first comments on something that could change the world forever is a pretty big deal.
• "Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air." Henry Anatole Grunwald - This one has a bit more depth to it I think. I see how it is a virtue in that it is a brave and commanding area to work in. But considering the fault part, I had trouble getting my head around it. I think that maybe the fact that journalism can't be silent is a fault because there is really no time to be respectful of things that are tragic or heartbreaking. News must be covered straight away. That's really what I take away from it anyway.
• "I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world." Henry R. Luce - Journalism is truly about getting human reactions. I believe only the very best journalists are able to consistently get these reactions. But I do connect this quote to that opinion I hold of journalism. The whole getting to the heart of stories, gets you to the heart of the people, and really people are what makes the "world" so I see that quote as the all encompassing process of journalism.
• "Generally speaking, the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shi*s into law." Auberon Waugh - HAH, alright. I don't really like this one much. To risk being hated I think there a lot of sh*ts also in journalism. That's all I'll say on this one buddy!
• "People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true." Lewis H. Lapham - I can see the point of this one. People now expect to be shocked. That's a sure fire way of getting attention and they don't get that from 'boring old news'.
• "Journalism is organised gossip." Edward Eggleston - This is a very old one which is surprising cos I thought this would be recent and pointing the finger at current commercial news or something. I don't really agree with this one if we're talking about legit journalism which has to be based on fact. Sorry Eddy Eggy.
• "… egomaniacs of average intelligence or less, often end up in the field of TV Journalism." Tina Fey - HAHA oh man, I luuuurve Tina Fey. Bossypants is such a good book. I had a talk by a Channel 10 GM today and he pretty much agreed with this statement. Having no personal experience I guess for now I'm agreeing until it's proven wrong to me. So come on TV journalists, fix that rep of yours. 
• "Journalism is little more than scribbling on the back of advertisements." Anon - Phwar, harsh words. I guess commercial media's whole aim is to making money so they're going to be conscious of advertising. They're gonna need to place enough advertising in their news that they'll be able to make money. Personally I think advertisements are scribbles on news. But I know I'm pretty naive.

Hope that was what is kind of expected! Talk soon I guess :)
Image sources: Picture 1 Picture 2

Media Use Diary

My Media Use- Raw Data

Day	TV/Movies	Facebook	Newspaper	Phone (calls and txts)	Twitter	General Reading (Magazines/Novels)	Radio	Online News	Blogging	Youtube	Total (mins)
1	0	30	0	15	0	0	0	20	0	15	80
2	120	45	0	20	0	0	0	0	0	0	185
3	0	25	0	27	0	15	0	20	0	0	87
4	10	15	0	70	0	0	0	0	0	0	95
5	30	30	10	20	20	0	0	0	20	0	130
6	65	40	0	20	0	30	0	5	0	30	190
7	5	35	0	15	10	0	0	10	5	10	90
8	120	25	0	20	0	25	0	20	0	0	210
9	120	40	0	20	5	30	0	15	15	0	245
10	0	30	0		0	0	20	0	0	20	70
Total (mins)	470	315	10	227	35	100	20	90	40	75	1382

Graph:

Analysis

On average I spent 55.5 minutes online everyday. Only 3.2% of the JOUR1111 cohort spends less than an hour online! The only time I access the internet is when I’m at home because I do not have a smartphone (77.3% of JOUR1111 owns one) that easily connects to the internet which may be a contributing factor to my small percentage. Another point to consider is my home environment, an on-campus university college. There is very little time for browsing the internet at my leisure due to a constant stream of social activities available.  I’m close, however, to belonging with the 1-2 hour group which consists of 22.5% of my peers, a considerable percentage increase from my 3.2%.

Peer Internet Usage:

While on the internet, the site I spent most of my time on was undoubtedly Facebook. I am with the majority of my peers on this one. This reflects the fact that 17-20 year olds (the majority of the JOUR1111 cohort) are driven by social networking. I contribute very little to my friends’ Facebook experience with minimal status updates and photo uploads though. The reason behind my hesitance to post on Facebook is that I don’t feel the need to tell my ‘friends’ (Facey friends are just a collection of people I kind of know mixed with my good pals) everything I’m up to/brag about what I’ve done/think of witty or emotional lines to impress upon them the depth of my psyche. My good pals already know all that about me! Why keep the excess friends? Simple: I like to read what they’re up to, read them brag and giggle as they express the depth of their psyche – and that is the honest truth. It seems in relation to media communication I’m much more of a taker than a giver.

I thought I was much more on top of news and current affairs but I don’t even check the news daily. Looking at Day 2 for example, I spent a total of 185 minutes using media and I didn’t spend a single minute on getting the day’s news (none of Day 2’s television use included watching news). 

Day	TV/Movies	Facebook	Newspaper	Phone	Twitter	General Reading (Magazines/Novels)	Radio	Online News	Blogging	Youtube	Total (mins)
2	120	45	0	20	0	0	0	0	0	0	185

I did a little asking around at my college and I got so much of the same response, “it feels like we live in our own little bubble” and “since moving in I don’t know what’s going on in the world.” I’m going to compare college life to a school camp – you are swept up in the day to day news of your very small surroundings that you become naïve to outside dramas and real world journalism.

When I do access news however, my main source is online. Very little of the total of my internet time is spent on news sites though! I kept track of the way I viewed the sites and my main technique is scanning headlines, I used these as summary notes of the day and only pursued one or two news stories of interest. This, I think, is a result of a shortened attention span from using sites such as Facebook and twitter that deliver information in a certain number of characters or less. After this analysis I’ve decided to put in a conscious effort to check ACTUAL news more often than my Facey newsfeed. Thanks JOUR1111 J

As a note: My TV usage seems like it should be a major feature of my analysis, however the large spike in TV/Movies is due to the fact that I went to the cinemas twice during these 10 days. There wasn't really too much depth to analyse which is why I chose to focus on internet.