Media journal assignment

Kelan Caccavella
Professor Bock
Mass Communication
2/07/10


Throughout the day of Saturday February 6th I kept a record of every type of media that I came into contact with. The recorded media use begins at 12:30 pm on Saturday and does not end till about 10pm that night. The use of media is all around and by doing minor things that may seem routine on a normal basis became interesting as to how much media I come into contact with during a normal weekend day. Through my recorded list of media uses I will show that even when unintentional media makes its way into our daily lives, that my use of media on that day aimed more towards my own entertainment as opposed to being informative, and through analyzing my results I realized that I should try and take in more information from the media instead of using it for my own enjoyment.
The start of the day began and usually begins with the internet. The home page I have is msn.com which gives a brief overview of what that particular website considers to be news. The news from that website usually comes in three categories starting with national news, then sports then usually a special interest article. I chose to take a look at the sports section looking at player’s stats from each team playing in the Superbowl. I noticed my first choice was to read what I would consider entertaining. Next I visited facebook because it is my only social network website and that again was for my own entertainment. From there it is probably one pm to one thirty pm and I flipped on the television and went through the channels stopping on sports center for more football coverage and then on CNN for a moment to where I viewed more coverage on the earth quake in Hattie. At this point the TV guide channel was put on to view what else was being aired at the time and also gave me a look at the entertainment news because the upper half of the show was airing the replay of the red carpet interviews before the Grammy’s. For the next two hours I played Play station three with my roommate, the game is called call of duty modern warfare.
The time being around four O’clock I then checked facebook again briefly through the internet option in my cell phone. Following that my roommate and I took a drive to Weis grocery store and we listened to the radio on the way there for the short trip. The radio was just playing popular music I believe the station was 96.5 and stayed that on the way back home. Around six pm I was eating dinner and watching more sports center as I ate. Around seven pm I looked over my communication theory text book to do a short review till seven thirty then cleaned up and had no media exposure for a short time. From eight pm to around ten to ten thirty pm I slowly began to get ready to go out that night and started to play music from off of my laptop as my friends showed up in that time period only stopping to shower and get dressed. It seemed to me that once I stopped recording my media intake that night that most of what I recorded revolved around my social and entertainment purposes. There was little informative media consumption that day but my mood stayed upbeat throughout the day and night.
Never realizing how much media I take in on a daily basis before making this time recorded list I was shocked to see how much media we are exposed to and I would consider my recorded media list for the day to be small not to mention the times of the day when I had no media exposure. One thing I would like to see change in my media consumption as I leave college would be to make sure to try to take in different forms and different sources of media, especially ones that focus more on worldly events and issues rather than just my enjoyment at that moment. But otherwise media is all around us and it just depends on which information from any media source an individual chooses to view and respond to.