Media Diary Reflection
The exercise of keeping track of my media consumption was truly eye-opening. What I noticed the most was how much news I access on social media, most surprisingly on Instagram and Facebook. I knew that I often find news on Twitter, but I always just assumed that I scrolled past news on Instagram and Facebook. Not the case! On Facebook, I mostly ended up clicking on news articles that my friends and colleagues have written and/or shared. I was also more likely to “like” a story on Facebook than on Instagram, and I think I am probably more likely to share an article on Twitter (retweet).
These habits show a few things about me. The first is that I am glued to my iPhone. This is something my friends and I talk about a lot because there seems to be a societal feeling that being able to be in constant contact/always online is a bad thing. And while I agree that real life experiences in in-person relationships are of course important, and a foundation of a healthy and happy life, I also think that it’s okay to be around your phone all day, especially when so many jobs require it. If I weren’t around my phone, in fact, I wouldn’t have access to consuming news as I would be in class or working during most of the day.
So that being said, it also shows that I am not immune to the social media bubble trap! What I mean by this is that I am much more likely to consume news from outlets that I admire enough to seek out and follow or like myself. In other words, I have curated my own news consumption passively without really thinking about it. This isn’t to say that I don’t seek out news in other ways, too. I listen to local news radio while I get ready in the morning and while I drive around LA (well, I switch to Spotify around 8 p.m.).
This also shows that I prefer my news free! By consuming news on social media, I am getting news from outlets that I would otherwise have to pay for, like The New Yorker and The LA Times. I do subscribe to The New York Times online subscription, but that’s it. Paywalls and sharing my email are turnoffs to me when it comes to getting news — if I’m trying to reach a story and am blocked in some way, I will usually just find that story somewhere else.
A news publisher would best be able to reach me by providing news for free. I hesitate to say I will be best reached by social media, because even for that I have to open an app. The absolute best way to reach me as a news consumer is through push notifications, which I read right away and save to head to the full article when I have time.
