Tiffany Walton
My media consumption habits, as recorded over two days, are quite atypical of my normal media usage. Overall, I’d say that I am a fairly heavy consumer of media content, however, my media consumption diary suggests my usage is short lived, random and frenetic. It’s not that I stopped consuming media over this two-day period; rather my schedule had shifted radically and I had a friend visiting, so I spent an abbreviated amount of time viewing media content.
If one were to take my media diary at face value, one would have no idea my true interests or gain any sense of who personally or professionally I am. What one would see is that I spend most of my time on news-oriented sites and that I read them on my laptop.
My habits show I was guided by Facebook, while checking my messages. One article I read was a story about a Florida teenager who posed as a medical doctor at a health clinic for a month. Another was about a young college athlete who died after choking on chewing gum. The last article was about an adoptive father who exposed his daughter’s Snapchat bullies.
On average, I spent about three and a half minutes reading each article.
I do seek out media, such as weather sites and perhaps pseudo-knowledge/pop-cultural reference guides as evidenced in the accession of urbandictionary.com. I sought out this site, urbandictionary.com to provide information after my friend and I had a debate about the definitions of “wife” versus “wifey.”
Reflecting on my habits, I am aware the diary does not tell the whole story. My behavior neither signals the end of an era of print newspapers nor the sole pursuit of mainstream news sites like CNN, MSNBC or FOX, but it does signal the end of news existing in one consistent form or being disseminated from one or two sites.
I observed that I typically treat my news sources as “wifey,” not “wife.” In our society, we regard a wife as a consistent monogamous partner. Wife’s adulterated, less well-known “equivalent” term, “wifey,” has its origin in Hip Hop culture, and by definition, is one’s main romantic partner, but not the only romantic partner.
While in real life, I privilege the term and definition of “wife” over “wifey,” I see that in my virtual reality, I pursue news from a “wifey” perspective, keeping one site close, while I explore other options.
I never knew that I relied on Facebook for so much of my news content. However, I reflect on a question Dana Chinn asks: “What do you want your target audience to do that will support your business?”
My take-home lesson is that you must show that you care for your consumer, keeping her engaged and informed. The best way is to curate headlines and content that appeal to and reflect her behaviors. As Ms. Chinn states, “If I care about my audience, I want to serve them.”
When your audience feels as though you intimately know them, loyalty becomes an easy consumer attitude and behavior.
