Media Consumption
First off, my media consumption habits are skewed because of I intentionally avoid media a few days a month, and this assignment happened to fall on one of those days. But even taking that into account, my media consumption is largely passive and, I would guess, not necessarily representative of my age group.
As a consumer, I am skeptical of traditional and legacy media companies. This shows in the sources that I turn to. I usually rely on Twitter and Facebook for my news, which means that my coverage is highly curated to my own tastes. I also read a paper version of the LA Times because my housemates have a subscription.
I am also a firm believer in avoiding oversaturation from the news. Being educated about current events is one thing, but I tend to care more about larger trends (i.e. an upswing in violence over a year) as opposed to a singular incident. Thus, I do not watch local or network news (I also don’t have cable so there’s that) unless there is some horrific event that I hear about on Twitter and am redirected to another site.
It’s not that I hate news organizations per se, but I as a consumer do not feel the need to be oversaturated with information at all times. That makes me overwhelmed and useless as a human being, and I prefer to be able to have hope in the midst of a chaotic and depressing world. With too much news and information consumption I find that I have a very surface-level understanding of many issues, when I would prefer to have a deep knowledge of a few.
My media diary also does not reflect my audio consumption, purely due to the days that I took place. When I have to commute for various reasons, I generally listen to either NPR or podcasts as opposed to music. This is again a form of highly curated content; I have weeded out the programs that I dislike and am disinterested by.
Perhaps this is not totally unique — we seek out that which supports our own theories of the world. But after six months of journalism school, I am jaded against the world of news. In legacy media, all I see is politics and a desire to silence some while putting others on a pedestal. As a result, I have little patience for news in any traditional format, and, when not reporting, would prefer to wait to hear about something to ensure that there is a wider picture being portrayed, as opposed to simply parroting a list of selective facts.
On the whole, the way that I consume information is either largely topical, through Facebook and Twitter, or very detail oriented, through longer articles, books and podcasts. It’s difficult to say whether my approach is representative of my age demographic as a whole, and I think that media consumption is an individualistic thing that is highly dependent on individual values and experiences.
