The Media Journal.

Media Use Journal JOUR1111

The following graphs indicate my 10-day record of media usage.
(Note: the sizes of graphs are at the only available ones before they become too big for the blog)

Comparison

• Judging by these graphs, it’s implied that I use social networking and YouTube (both New Media devices) far more than any other media. Compared to the general survey group, it shows that while I, like most people, spend most of my time on social networks (approx. 92% of the general participants used most of their time networking), I spend far too much time watching videos (only approx. 37% watched streamed TV programs) and barely any time watching TV (only 3 hours’ worth of it over 10 days, unlike the majority which watched 1-2 hours’ worth of it every day).
• I also listened to an unusually high amount of radio (1-2 hours), much more than the majority 53.9% (<1 hour).
• It is interesting to note that I almost methodically, every day, without fail, log on firstly to Facebook and then onto my most-used news site (ninemsn.com.au), before moving on to anything else. I believe this is due to my desire to constantly stay updated about the latest happenings of the world, both in my life (Facebook) and in international events (online news). As these are free, update more and are faster than Old Media, I use them frequently.

Comparing new media to old media

As this graph shows,
• I am a hopeless user of current New Media, spending over 5 times the amount of minutes on New Media than Old Media.
• I believe this behaviour is firstly because I am a member of Gen Y, a generation that has been raised mostly on New Media: the Internet was starting to take off at around the time we were able to fully comprehend it. (see picture below)

• Secondly, as my entire social and academic work is on the computer (a member of New Media), I use New Media frequently because it is a part of the crucial aspects of my life (e.g. can’t write an assignment without a computer, I easily get distracted by what's on the computer).

CONCLUSION

Overall, with the information gathered I would say that I, as well as the general participants of the survey, am a slave to New Media, and use almost none of the Old Media that is currently available today in comparison. This indicates that while we are currently up to date with today’s current news due to its easy accessibility (Computers, smart/i-phones), we generally (not entirely) ignore Old Media methods of communications, as Online News (New Media) and Facebook constantly update with the current happenings of the world. I believe that while this is extremely helpful, giving us hyper-communication (Instant connection and conversation anywhere at any time), it also reduces our creativity and general knowledge. I click links on Ninemsn.com.au to visit the stories I want. Basically: a title seems interesting, I click it. But, if I read Old Media (i.e. Newspaper), I read stories I find relevant, then glance over at others that initially seem uninteresting but turn out to very beneficial/relative/interesting to my current life. This has not ever happened in my usage of New media, the closest being finding out of extremely uninteresting occurrences on Facebook.

Word Count: 535.

'Never be afraid of silence, silence is very powerful.'

'Never be afraid of silence, silence is very powerful.'
A great quote, one that I believe is one of the most truthful ones out there. I also believe it should be applied to certain girls out there that have mouths like 7-11, but that's just me.
The last lecture happened to be audio. Annoying for some in that they have to rely solely on audio, great for others in that they don't have to attend a lecture. Personally, I was the latter in that I had to force myself to listen to audio for half an hour.
Regardless! The lecture was extremely interesting in that two incredibly smooth-voiced men gave generally good advice about pursuing stories and careers and radio/journalism. The first guest was Richard Findler, a radio host. Some of the most crucial parts that he talked about were:

• Radio is NOT like TV. TV is high impact in that it is entertaining, but it isn't easy to relate to. It generally comes through to you from a distance.

• Radio, on the other hand, tries its best to make YOU (the listener) feel like you're part of the conversation, and to keep you involved in it.

• Radio interviews are usually kept simplistic, like interviewing a celebrity: There would probably be about 7 minutes of total interviewing, excluding special cases (political debates, REALLY big celebrities on the show). 

• The key for making an interview entertaining is that the person is in a trustworthy, secure, safe interview. Act in an accusatory manner (much like political candidates do today) and the interviewee clams up or becomes defensive.

• What is important is that the viewer has to be genuinely interested to make it a story. 

• If someone's lying or fake, then we can smell it a mile away, it's much easier to lie on TV than on radio. (This I believe is due to TV changing how everything looks: The faces are different, the lighting is unnatural, and most of the words are at least half-scripted. On radio, there is only the voice, which is made more and more easy to hear, thus more easy to tell if they're fake/lying.)

(Not Richard Findler's exact words) You need a driving force, something energetic that makes you enthusiastic about working. Findler's force is (his words) that he wants to be useful, he wants to give his audience something, which gives him a sense of public service, and that's what keeps him energetic and happy, something that makes me energetic and happy because genuine honesty and reality seem to be fading more and more into the background these days.

Finally, due to the last post being much longer than necessary, I'll finish up now with a quick finisher and another interesting perk at the end for the longer readers.

Defining moments on radio: 

'Those moments when someone reveals something of themselves personally, and they've almost forgotten they've been on radio: that's been the magic moment.'

And now for the interesting video.

the final beginning: part 2

Week 2!
-Side note: This was made with a different format, just flexing this blogs boundaries.
Week 2 discussed several things:
Web Iterations
News under Web 3.0?
and 
the challenges of Online News.


Web Iterations
OLD MEDIA! 
Yes, good old traditional newspaper! Radio, Television! And (unfortunately if you read the previous post) magazines! They all portrayed mass communication. But: Is that actually it? Old Media = old communication methods? Not quite.
Old Media: 

"Media platforms that were essentially derived from an industrial paradigm. Created and developed in the late 19th and first half of the the 20th centuries, these platforms- newpapers, magazines, radio and television- are essentially instruments of mass communication targeting large aggregated audiences, albeit within their own specific markets."- Harrison

Next from Web Iterations: Versions of the web!

Web 1.0 - The Information Web

This is the current web, the one which we are all aware of and are hopelessly addicted to. It's full of content, and surrounded by ads! Ads, the only thing I can easily look at and see both a great source of happiness (the journalists still get paid!) and a frustrating, constantly annoying piece of crap that offers me things they are convinced I would need, but in actuality are just offers of time that I would rather spend eating an entire bicycle.

Web 2.0 - The Social Web

If you've read that and have no idea what it means, you need to get out more. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace (rest in peace) were/are all powerful social media sites, where people can instantly generate knowledge and opinions about anything, anywhere. I love the social web. Being able to complain or compliment anything at all at any time is a remarkable boon to mankind, as well as quickly using Wikipedia to double check any mistakes I've made.

It appears the word for users of the Social Web (2.0) is a Prod-user, a blend of producers and users. Produsage is used to generate money for the sites of web 2.0: 'users are almost always also able to be producers of content, and often necessarily so in the very act of using it.' (http://snurb.info/produsage)

Web 3.0 - The Semantic Web

Web 1.0 was the static flat web of hyperlinks and no interaction. Web 2.0 is an improvement: converting html into the fluid web we know today.

Web 3.0 is the next step. "Web 3.0 takes all this a step further adding machine-readable meaning 

to the packets of information. It is thus known to the technically minded as the semantic web. Once it is manifest the semantic web will take us to within a gnat’s whisker of that utopia in which you have the exact change for a trip from Mornington Crescent to LAX via JFK. Before we get there though, there is the not-so-simple matter of enabling meaning within information sources. This concept brings us full circle to the early days of web design when every tool stressed the importance of meta tags." - David Bradley 2009

Now, what is a meta tag? A meta tag is a special HTML tag that provides information about a web page. They are unlike HTML tags in that meta tags do not affect how the page is displayed, providing information about it: who created this page? Do they update often? What's the content? what keywords represent the page's content? If it's sounding familiar, you're correct. Many search engines utilise this method, sending what's called 'spiders' out to gather documents, and an indexer to read these documents in order to help create meaningful results for every query.

Web 3.0 focuses on us: Individuals. But what would the effects have on Web 1.0? Or even 2.0?

The lecture helpfully pointed out a few possible futures:

-Hyperlocalisation! The ability to get any knowledge instantly from anywhere!

-Specific Content! That means the news YOU want to read! Advertising things YOU want!

-complete and utter ignorance and lack of general knowledge. Getting everything we want whenever we want by clicking a mouse is simply too easy. We need to expand and venture into unknown areas to have true knowledge. "If a pig loves it's stall the open door means nothing."

Entitlement

We, as human beings, as entitled to a lot, and are grateful for it. Apparently, the lecture believes that our Entitlement may just be the death of Journalism.

Newspapers made so much money before. All the advertising made them so powerful. But due to Web 1.0, a lot of deaths were caused. Ebay has apparently brutally killed the ad section in newspapers! Will we pay for something for what we believe we are rightfully entitled to have for free?

Yes apparently. Membership to online news, such as the Times, has its benefits: quality for money, simple as that. But many of us don't have a membership to the times and don't want to! Why? Because we believe we are entitled to have it. Many newspapers haven't made these 'paywalls', and maybe they won't. However, considering how many sites today will offer 'premium' services (Herald Sun), perhaps it's only a matter of time.

Charlie Morris.

-Also, as a final interesting information and thank you, here's an interesting note below, found easily and within seconds using our current web. Message or let me know if you want me to keep this up.

What is it? After every blog, I post something interesting (a thank you to readers), which can be anything. Let me know what you think!

The amazing feats of possibly the most powerful martial artist ever.

Bruce Lee (Simplified link below)

the final beginning

And here are the other two.

Week 1.
"I know of no human being who has a better time than an eager and energetic reporter." - H.L. Mencken, Journalist.
The first lecture, a great introduction to a vital question: What the heck do we do in this course?
What is Journalism and Communication?
According to Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, "Journalism is the first rough draft of history". An accurate quote, but it needs a little expansion. Enter Henry Anatole Grunwald:

"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."
What the two quotes agree on is that Journalism is first on the scene when it comes to history: It states immediately what it is seeing to get a truthful interpretation, and refines itself later.
Journalism faces some difficult obstacles ahead, with an unlikely enemy and ally being technology. Is it causing the death of newspapers? Is it also advancing Social media, thus allowing citizens to become journalists? Granted, this allows news to arrive faster, but also removes a lot of potential stories for journalists, in essence giving them less of a job. Worst of all, there is also the ugliest abomination to rear it's ugly head: Yellow journalism entertainment news. Even typing those words down makes me want to feel disgust: we see this offence to Journalism far too often, and what is also infuriating and frustrating to me is that 'stars' generate lots of publicity and attention from these. Behold, the most frequently used face in yellow journalism:

Yes, Kim Kardashian. the Krippling Kontroversial waste of space and also a knife in Journalism: Entertainment news.
Finishing off the lecture, which after explaining the threats to journalism gave lots of helpful information that has no place in this blog, they reminded us of one thing:

"You are the Journalist."

Charlie Morris.

The Late Newcomer

Well, as we were meant to post our old ones (and I lost mine with the last attempt at a blog due to an unfortunate altercation involving the last account), here's week 3's lecture.

WHAT IS TEXT?
Well, it appears text is:

• Fast!
• Flexible!
• Having Complete control!
• Portable!
• Searchable!
• Absolutely Dominating online!

Couldn't be more true for the last one, the web would have to be completely remade to get anywhere near as much popularity as it would with text, I literally can't see how you can create one without text.

And speaking of text, this brings me to the next picture, what I believe is a must-have when it comes to writing a news story. 

This is a modified version of *cough* today's lecture. The point it makes is simple: When creating a story, USE THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS THE MOST FREQUENTLY. Then, use quotes, supporting details, i.e. in essence, don't say s*** unless you can show what supports it.
Finally, use the general background. This is in because it's necessary, to clear confusion and to get a better picture of what's happening.

An example of this was used in the lecture (see below):

British and Italian hostages murdered by captors in special forces rescue bid in Nigeria

A British hostage has been killed in a Special Forces operation to free him from al-Qaeda aligned kidnappers in Nigeria.

This follows the pyramid exactly: The opening statement shows what's the most important: Who is it, what's happened, where did it happen? The rest of the story goes on to give more details, giving the name (Chris McManus, when it happened, why it happened, and what happened after.

See here for the story.

But text can't be as simple as that one pyramid. Which is why the lecture continued!

Text is also:

• Story content
• headlines
• standfirst
• Captions
• Pull quotes
• Break-out boxes
• links

Any decent news-paper/website includes all of these The lecture showed an example, the website of The Australian: it showcased a headline over Unions mulling a levy to fight Abbott, Captions for each story, content for each boxed story before linking each one over to its own page on its own story.

And it appears we perceive text as even more important than photographs! Apparently we look at and register text before the picture! Is this true? I tested it out on family, and found that no, it wasn't. They immediately always saw the picture first. What did you see?

See the photo HERE. note: slightly strange, includes slight nudity.

Well, I thought it was a decent story.

Text is (of course) the majority of our social web, the Web 2.0: Emails we send, blogs we post, tweets we send, Facebook updates we create, comments we leave, all of these rely on text. Forums apply to this as well.

Our blogs appear to be exponentially expanding (what isn't lately on the Internet?). a 2010 edition of the Sate of the Blogosphere found that instead of a community, blogging is now becoming mainstream. The rate of blogging also increased, with more blogs this year than there were last year, as well as over half of them believing blogs will be the primary source of media in five years (3 years from now). Personally, I believe this to be an exaggeration, but the more you that read this, the more I'm proven wrong.

TechCrunch advertised a story in which a man seemingly sold his company for $1000 in at least 3 ways: on its website, on Twitter, and on Facebook, 3 highly effective means of mass communication.

Finally, text is: 

• Metadata
• Excerpts
• and Tags

The lecture recommended WordPress Excerpt for text such as this, which I trust to be well-informed due to having Excerpt in its title.

Thank you for your reading, I hope you enjoyed it.

'Illiterate men can contemplate in the lines of a picture what they cannot learn by means of the written word.' -Pope Gregory I

PICTURE STORIES.
In the Journalism's lecture of week 4, the topic of discussion was: pictures. It's widely attributed that Frederick Barnard once said: 'A picture is worth a thousand words.' This saying has proven itself countlessly, time and time again. Every picture we see, conveys meaning and understanding across in ways words never could, which is why almost every news-worthy story has to have one.

In the time before literacy and words were common, or even in existence, stories were told with pictures: the cave paintings in France, Plato's cave (see below), all conveyed from anything to everything, to fables to epics.
When the Christian faith began expanding and building, they could not reach people through words as the general population was illiterate. Therefore, they constructed some of the most beautiful artworks to convey their perception of God, some of which are still conveyed just as easily today as they were thousands of years ago.

Journalism owes much to the life of pictures. Photography today can easily capture moments in time and hold them there for the world to marvel at. But there has been some debate over the possible travesty/miracle: 
Photoshop. 
Yes, this is the change to photography: to artificially enhance beyond a natural effect. Photoshop has caused much controversy on its ability to change faces and bodies, from artistic expressions (see below) to 'glamorising' celebrities, creating impossible figures and faces (see below) 

An effect of Photoshop: no illustrious change to make Obama appear beautiful, bigger-than-life or better, just expression of the artist.

(Source: http://www.flashuser.net/photoshop/30-photoshop-tutorials-for-stunning-photo-effects.html)

 The controversy with 'Photoshop Effect': changing a dry, old singstar into a luxurious, eternally-youthful singstar.

(Source: http://likecool.com/Madonna_Before_and_After_photoshop--Pic--Gear.html)

This tool frustrates people of today: many can believe that this is an offense to photos: They are meant to capture the moments of life. Altering them would merely take this away. However, this will be discussed later. For now, in order to keep this blog short: moving on to Photo-Journalism.


What makes a great photo?

'Burst of Joy', 1974

Gustavo Cuevas of Spain captured this photo of the unfortunate matador   being gored by his first bull.

Today, photos are used all over the world, and are almost necessary for the story to be considered a story in journalism. Cameras are available to almost anyone at any time, thanks to the blending of cameras and phones. Social media utilised photo-journalism to further protests and causes, such as the Arab Spring Riots. News today uses videos and cameras more than ever before, which can be argued that it unfortunately, slowly pushes the 'old media' style of newspaper into the gutter. What is the future holding for old media? I'll leave you with that.
Have some stories.
-Charlie Morris

 

"A picture has no meaning at all if it can't tell a story." Eetu Silanpaa

And now for something completely different.

While I wait for the next JOUR1111 lecture, here's something not remotely related to the class, but for the sake of entertainment is possibly related to Japanese techno LED dancing:

Wrecking Orchestra's choreographed LED light-suit routine

It Begins...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JUCfX1P1ik

Hey everybody, and welcome to Modern Musing. After an unfortunate altercation with my previous attempts at  this blog involving misinterpretation as spam, emails, frustration, and yelling at a computer for ages, I can finally say that Modern Musing's finally up and running! So welcome, enjoy and stay tuned.