Amanda's Language Initiative!

Recently, I've decided that I wanna learn how to say goodmorning, hello, please, thank you, goodbye and goodnight in different languages (just, you know, the basic courtesy stuff). So, being somebody who likes to create more trouble for herself, I've decided to engage my unit in it as well!

Just to clarify on that point, I live in a residential college and so all of us are broken up into different units and there are 7 of us living in the same unit.

So what I've done is to cut out a speech bubble and stick in on my door next to my moustache man (that's our unit's theme - all of us have got moustache men on our doors). And from there, I'd stick different words on the bubble throughout the day - one language a day!

I started this yesterday, on 28 Mar 2012. It was German day yesterday and here, have a look at some photos! (:

This is my moustache man!

 So yeah! German day ended and today was French day! (:

Ahh, merci beaucoup!

I look at that photo and think to myself: NEVER AM I GONNA USE MY FACE AGAIN. *insert cringe here*

So yeah. Now I'm just trying to decide whether I should do a post on Amanda's Language Initiative everyday or what... Well, I did tell you I was creating more trouble for myself. Hehe.

On a side note, tomorrow's gonna be Mandarin day! Shall keep this updated, for now!

Till then, Auf Wiedersehen! (:

MEDIA USE DOSSIER

So, here is my media use dossier for JOUR1111 1st assignment! 

I'll start off with a table of my daily media usage for the past 10days. I've chosen to leave certain areas like tumblr and Skype out, because I did not use much of it at all, and in my opinion, they aren't really related to it.

 

DATES	Twitter	Blogs	Facebook	TV	Radio	Internet	Newspaper
18 Mar	26tweets	0	4hrs	1hr	0	4hrs	0.5hr
19 Mar	17tweets	2	1.5hrs	0hr	0	2hrs	0hr
20 Mar	14tweets	0	2hrs	5hrs	0	2hrs	0.5hr
21 Mar	14tweets	2	3hrs	2hrs	0	2hrs	0hr
22 Mar	10tweets	0	1hr	3hrs	0	2hrs	1hr
23 Mar	45tweets	0	2hrs	0hr	0	2hrs	0.5hr
24 Mar	12tweets	0	3hrs	3hrs	0	3hrs	0hr
25 Mar	16tweets	0	2hrs	0hr	0	2hrs	0hr
26 Mar	18tweets	4	3hrs	1hr	0	5hrs	1hr
27 Mar	15tweets	0	2hrs	2hrs	0	5hrs	0hr

Table 1

Let’s start first with comparing my age group with the rest of the students – I’m in 20 – 25 age group and we constitute to only a mere 9.6% out of all the JOUR1111 students. I think age is an important factor as generally, the younger generation is more tech-savvy as compared the older generation.

Next, a brief breakdown of the kinds of social media I use.

Facebook accounts – 1

Twitter accounts – 1 (before JOUR1111) and now, 2

Blogs– 1 (before JOUR1111) and now, 2

And then a comparison with the rest of the cohort:

Facebook accounts - 97.2% of JOUR1111 students have one or more accounts as compared to 2.8% who have none.

Twitter accounts - 70.8% of the students had none (before JOUR1111) as compared to 29.2% who have one or more accounts.

Blogs - 63.0% of the students had none (before JOUR1111) as compared to 37% who have one or more.

Based on these data, I can tell that while Facebook is popular, Twitter is not really much of a big thing here. I am not really sure why, but back in Singapore, almost everybody I know has a Twitter account. So maybe that is why, looking at my Media Usage Log, I tweet so much (especially since I’ve had my account for more than a year). 

Based on my table above (Table 1), I spend an average of 3hours on the internet. 

What exactly do I use the internet for?

1.     Reading news online

2.     General surfing and browsing (random websites)

3.     Social Networking

4.     Blogging

5.     “Window” Shopping 

6.     Email (but very seldom because I get them via my Blackberry)

7.     University stuff (like downloading lecture notes and blackboard)

Compared to the data collected in the survey, that seems to be the norm among all of us.  I guess we use the internet so much because we are in an age where we are all familiar with it, and it is easily accessible. Also, so many things happen and people are fast to upload photos and talk about it on the internet these days. 

It might also be because I'm constantly on my phone and so I surf the net a lot.

Next, I will be taking a look at the time I spent on news.

So, where do I get my news?

-       Print

-       Online

-       TV

-       Mobile apps

Date (Mar)	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	Total
Online	1hr	0hr	0.5hr	0hr	0.5hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	1hr	1hr	4hrs
Radio	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr
TV	0hr	0hr	0.5hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0.5hr
Print	0.5hr	0hr	0.5hr	0hr	1hr	0.5hr	0hr	0hr	1hr	0hr	3.5hrs
News App	0.5hr	0hr	0.5hr	0.5hr	0.5hr	0hr	0hr	0hr	0.5hr	0.5hr	3hrs

Table 2

Time spent on online news (in hours)

Time spent on TV news (in hours)

Time spent on printed news (in hours)

Time spent on mobile news app (in hours)

To summarise, I have done a pie chart to show the total hours I spent on news for each medium.

Total time spent on news

I mostly get news online, as it is more convenient. As I live in a residential college, we only get one copy of a certain newspapers and sometimes others are reading it or certain sections are missing. Online, however, I get fast and complete news stories.  Also, I can get to read newspapers from my home country (and other countries), and not only from Australia. On top of just going to the various websites for news, I get my news from Twitter. It’s convenient as I can read the headlines and click on the links provided and it’ll automatically bring me to the right page. 

As it can be seen, I don’t get my news from the radio and seldom listen to news on the TV. Also, I get my news from apps I download from my mobile app store – for example, Channel News Asia. This might be because I am still used to reading news from my region rather than Australian news. Also, I find it much better to get read news via my mobile apps because:

1. It's free.
2. It's easily accessible (I can read it on the go anytime as my phone's always with me)
3. It's fast and convenient (just open the app and viola!, it's there!)

How does all of these link me to journalism and communications?

Well, for one thing, I’m still more inclined to an Asian view of news than Australian. For this, I think it might take me quite some time before I am fully adjusted to reading the news here. 

Also, I don’t catch the news on TV because I’m not quite sure which channels I should follow. I guess it might be because I am more of a visual person than auditory as well. I like being able to read and go back to previous statements when I lose track of something. On the radio or TV, however, I am unable to do that.  

To be honest, I find that the news reporting in Australia is rather limited. I seldom read about world news and when I do, it is mostly about the US or other western countries, seldom do I read about Asian countries. As much as I know that it is important to know about happenings in the country I am staying in, I like reading about world news as well.  This is also one of the reasons why I go online for news more often than any other mediums. 

This reflects on my relationship with journalism and communications as a more global newsreader rather than local newsreader, and what I read about is more diverse rather than concentrated (I try to read about everything rather than only about stuff I’m interested in). 

Based on this, we cannot separate news from technology now, or to a certain extent, people from technology. We are connected in so many ways. News can be presented in a matter of seconds the moment it happens. For example, I see something while on the way home, I snap a photo immediately and post it onto the net via Facebook or Twitter with a short write-up. It is THAT fast. 

Now, as more and more people are tech-savvy and mostly on the go, having news accessible online and through mobile applications have become almost an indispensable thing to have. It is convenient and fast for most people, and we are not limited to only local newspaper but global newspapers as well. 

In conclusion, to me, while print newspaper (the old fashioned way) is important, it is equally important to have online news as well as people become more tech-savvy. Also, it might not seem that way at first glance, but a lot of out media usage have to do with journalism and communication - e.g. news headline updates through Twitter. Thus, to try and separate both news and technology will prove to be futile in this time and age.