Posts Tagged ‘my-media-use’
During the week of my media use blog analysis’, I would begin my day as usual, scrolling on social media before getting out of bed. I did not choose to comment too much on this daily process. Because most of my online media use was done from home, I kept it authentic by not changing the way I used media. I began my process by using media as I always did, keeping track of how I ended up on one video, or one site, to the next.
Instead of tracking every single site, video, or image I looked at, I made a conscious effort to go back through my google history, once I had been using my laptop for a period of time. I would go to my google history and pick out a section that I thought showed an interesting perspective on the way that I personally use media on a daily* basis.
Next I noted down the key points in my google history, whilst looking for trends. These trends could include things such as, areas of youtube I end up on, or possibly what sort of media I was consuming, whether that be, videos, images, online shopping, social media, etc.
My final step, and probably the most interesting to look into, was to try and understand why I was using media in this way, and what the overall point of it was. I kept it quite simple by deciding whether my media use was for personal or educational use.
Today is the final day of my media use blog series. Today I had a job interview so I missed my film screening for Media 1. This affected how I interacted with online media on this particular day.
My media use this morning was very minimal, besides waking up, scrolling through instagram, and liking a few pictures I saw as I sped through my timeline. This afternoon however, when I got home, I had to make it my mission to find an online version of the film I was meant to view today, which was North by Northwest, by Alfred Hitchcock. I found the film and made my way through it. I noticed that whilst I was watching the film, I found myself gravitating towards my phone, replying to text messages whenever I got a notification. Me, not realising really that I was doing this, sort of shows how big a part online media plays in my everyday life.
To find the film I watched today, I first checked Youtube, because so often older films are uploaded in their entirety to Youtube, somehow getting past copyright issues? Unfortunately it wasn’t on there, so I had to search further. **I do not endorse illegally watching or downloading films!** I ended up going to a site called Putlocker, where I managed to find the entire film, in time to watch it before my tutorial class tomorrow.
The reason for todays, main online media use is quite straightforward, in that I was using it for educational reasons. On the other hand though, I essentially didn’t have a reason for my mindless social media browsing whilst I was watching the film. It may have been due to my natural desire to remain stimulated and socially connected. I also noticed how my online media use, whilst watching the film actually affected my viewing, which is something I should aim to stay more aware of next time.
Today my media use was an interesting one, as I was using my online platforms and social media sites for different reasons that I usually would be. I spent the day today at the Australian Grand Prix, so however I was using online media quite a lot, it was different to how I would use it on an ordinary day.
To give some context, I’ve been following the Grand Prix for about two years now, but usually I am doing so from home, by either watching highlight reels, or watching the race live on whatever sporting channel. Throughout the race, because it was so crowded, and obviously the race is so fast paced, I was keeping updated via twitter of the standings of the drivers. I went to the official F1 (Formuala 1) twitter page which was giving, annoyingly quite irregular updates on the race. I ended up going to the Formula 1 hashtag and browsing live tweets regarding the race. Through my personal twitter, I also go involved with sharing comments about the race and also sharing photos from live at the race on the hashtag.
I would send out and look at tweets whenever the majority of the racers were on the other side of the track, obviously because from where I was sitting in the general admission, the cars aren’t always in view. I took the photos that I shared just from my iPhone, as it made it super quick and easy to share the images.
The reason for my online media use today I think was the sense of community that is created. The fact that I could share comments and images to people everywhere in the world within seconds was fun and exciting. As well as being able to share, I can look back at what I shared, and almost relive the event in the future.
Today’s media use was very uneventful, which is going to make for quite an uneventful blog post, unfortunately. I was out with friends all day/night, so the entirety of todays media use was posting some snapchat stories, as well as the occasional notification check, on Facebook, and Instagram. As well as the use of these social media app, on a more or less exciting level, travelling too and from seeing friends, I was listening to music on Spotify. I have Spotify premium, so lucky for me, I don’t have to listen to back-to-back ads, which definitely makes for a better listening experience.
I wasn’t posting anything on websites such as, Facebook, and Instagram today, however I posted occasional pictures and videos to my Snapchat story throughout the day and night. I also used iMessage to contact my parents throughout the night. I watched other peoples snapchat stories during the day/night, as well as posting on my own.
Why was I using Snapchat? I think the reason I use Snapchat, especially on days/nights when I’m out and about is because nothing on it is “permanent”. Of course I use the term loosely, because essentially everything is permanent online, to an extent. The 24 hour lasting period on Snapchat stories is great because it takes away from the desire to making an image or video perfect. It is a super quick and easy way to share short little captures of my day, and being able to share them easily with friends, and a few family members. This is unlike the process of having to post photos for example onto Facebook, where you would have to manually remove the photo or video when you no longer wish for it to be online.
My media use today has been absolutely pitiful. I’ve spent most of the day finishing an assignment for my media 1 class, which hasn’t given me a lot of free time to just browse the internet. It’s not just a dead end from here though.
I was on youtube for a bit this morning as I was watching some different Adobe Premiere tutorials. I wanted to learn how to do some basic colour grading for the self portrait video I was creating, so I searched on youtube, “Adobe Premiere Colour Grading Tutorial”. So many different videos popped up to aid me, but because I just wanted to get it done, I went to the video with the most views, as well has having a high rating. I did NOT have time to mess around this morning. I searched a number of other tutorials, ranging from, “The best way to export a video from adobe premiere”, and, “Typography on Adobe Premiere”. Overall it helped a lot in finishing my project before it was due at 5pm.
Essentially I was a consumer of media in this particular instance. A creator on youtube created an informational video, and I used it to my advantage. I took the steps to watch these tutorials, because of the fact that I know I am much more a visual learner, rather than following a written step-by-step guide. I find also that youtube is the most accessible streaming site for me. Later I realised I could have used Lynda.rmit to help me out, so maybe that’s something I could do next time to assist in my work.
Today I didn’t start class until 2:30 so I had a bit of time to kill this morning. I was catching up on some blog posts that I need to write for my media 1 class so I spent my morning researching and re-reading some texts from this week. I’ve talked about all of these a lot in other blog posts so i’ll stray away from that and talk about other stuff I did today. Other than that I spent time online shopping, looking at things I can’t afford…
I started off looking online at a site called Princess Polly. I scrolled through the site for maybe about 5 minutes before I found a dress that I liked. Since I can’t actually buy, so I added it to my wish-list so that when I finally, maybe, one day have some money I can buy it. When I clicked on this particular dress there was tabs on the page that linked to other items that the brand suggested to “pair” with the dress I had selected. This I found instantly was a clever marketing technique, because I definitely found myself looking at items I that I wouldn’t have usually looked at, due to the fact they were shown to me, rather than me going out and actively searching for them.
I think the reason I spent so long browsing the website was due the fact that things were being, essentially, “thrown” in my face. Overall, I didn’t have a reason for being on the site. I wasn’t buying, I wasn’t leaving a review, but I guess I was however saving different items for possible, later purchase. This action in itself makes me a consumer of what this brand was putting out to me.
Today, or more so tonight I found myself falling down a never ending hole of youtube videos, as I do way more than I would like to admit to. I usually spend a couple minutes looking through suggested videos, seeing if there’s anything that catches my attention. My suggested videos is usually filled with film trailers, lifestyle vloggers, and the odd random Dr. Phil segment.
When I went to my youtube homepage at around 6pm this evening, there was a video in my suggestions there was a video titled “Neuroscientist Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty”, from a channel called WIRED. The video is basically what it says in the title, it is a neuroscientist explaining one concept to five different people who have different levels of knowledge on, well, neuroscience. I have no interest in science whatsoever, hence why I’m here in a media course… not science… However despite this I found myself super engaged with the video and the concept of it. Watching this one video encouraged me to go to the WIRED youtube channel and see what sorts of other videos they had to offer. The second video I clicked on was titled “Movie Accent Expert Breaks Down 32 Actors’ Accents“, probably a little more down my ally in terms of what I’m interested in. Again, the title pretty much says it all, a movie expert broke down the accents of 32 actors in movies such as, Brokeback Mountain, Jobs, and Inglorious Bastards. I could go further into detail with every other video I watched on this channel but that would take a very long time, so instead i’ll link to some of my favourites at the bottom of this post.
I’m not sure why I fell so deep into this channels videos, or I sort of do, it’s the fact that every video is different to the last which really kept me engaged for a long time. Sometimes I feel quite unproductive when I’m on youtube, or just online for a long period of time, but I found that despite the videos being entertaining, they were super informational as well. Essentially I don’t have a real reason to be watching any of these videos except for just pure curiosity. And with saying that, I think i’m off to go watch some more… Day two, done!
Some of my favourite videos from WIRED
Today is the first day of my weekly media use tracking, but so far I haven’t had the opportunity to engage on social media and generally engage and participate online as much as I would most other days. Hopefully the days following will be a little more interesting, and personal.
In between classes I downloaded a video from my personal instagram and uploaded it to vimeo. This was for educational reasons because I needed to upload a video to my blog for my Networked Media checklist. This involved me distributing the piece of media that I created onto an online forum, in this case it was to vimeo, and later sharing it even further onto my media blog in the form of a blog post.
The video that I posted was one that I created on adobe premiere over summer and was shot all on my iPhone. Before posting it onto vimeo and my blog I had to make a quick edit to it and change the music because the original music I used would have fallen under copyright. I imported the video back into adobe and removed the music and added another soundtrack that I found when browsing through the creative commons tag on soundcloud.
Essentially the reason for this media interaction was for educational reasons. I had the choice to post any video, and I did choose to post something that I had made myself. I think I did this because I wanted to share what I had made with a larger group of people onto my blog, rather than just the tighter nit group that I have on my instagram. It also gave me the chance to possibly get feedback from my peers which I knew would be beneficial for myself in the long run/