What seven hours in a Korean hair salon taught me about the news
As luck would have it, the two days I was charged with monitoring my media habits were two very atypical days in my grad school life.
The first was MLK Day, which actually almost began with me clicking on an article via Facebook on the OMG AMAZINGLY CUTE THING CHANNING TATUM TOLD HIS WIFE JENNA (caps are my own). But, mindful that this article would kick off my two-day diary of my media consumption habits, I sighed and scrolled on. I couldn’t start like this.
Turns out, I didn’t end up consuming that much media that day at all — in fact, being a journalism student, I relished the time I could spend not looking at a screen.
However, as I reviewed my media consumption for the first day, what I tracked felt normal. There was a burst of activity in the morning, as I reviewed emails on my smartphone, texted with friends, and scrolled through my various social media timelines.
Then came Tuesday. This is not a blog post about my hair, but on this particular day, my hair determined what media I consumed. Due to an improbable set of circumstances that are better left unsaid, I was trapped in a Korean hair salon for about seven hours getting my hair done (and my scalp burned to a crisp). During this time, I devoured about six women’s magazines, cover to cover, and scrolled through my Facebook timeline maybe a kajillion times. As I thumbed through my third women’s magazine (and maybe my 6th article on what dress said celebrity was wearing as she sat down for her interview), I thought about proximity.
I enjoy women’s magazines and articles geared toward women, but I don’t often seek them out. In most cases, I don’t really have to. On a more regular day, they’re being shared with me by the women I’m close to — whether it’s directly through a text message, a Korean hair salon, or through a platform like Facebook.
In grad school, we learn that proximity is a news value. If something happens locally, it’s more likely to mean something to you. But it’s valuable in terms of news consumption as well. We consume what’s close to us, not only in our literal environment, but our digital one.
Proximity is a key factor when it comes to how I consume news: whether it’s through my smartphone (the vast majority of my consumption is on this device), my computer, a book or magazine. As an avid reader, I will read whatever is closest. When I can’t read the news, I listen to it (my NPR consumption is highest in the shower and while I’m cooking, I found).
But proximity also determines how far I’ll go to get a story. I do have news apps on my phone (Buzzfeed News being my favorite, but the Washington Post gets a lot of love too), but I don’t often turn to them because I get so much of it through Facebook and Twitter. The same is likely true of most people my age.
We’re consumers of media, but we’re also consumers of each other’s timelines — that is, other people’s curation. Which means you’re only as smart as your timeline.
Twitter is the most straightforward example of this concept, although Facebook has increasingly come to embody this idea as well. There areaccounts and people we follow, and there is the information they find valuable: anything from memes of Michael Jordan to news of the water crisis in Flint Michigan. As we post the things that reflect our interests and personalities, we also end up consuming our timelines’ interests — and in doing so, their values and their concerns.
This struck me as I texted with my boyfriend. He asked me if I had been following the Flint water crisis. I told him I knew the basics (which I knew solely from reading the headlines of articles posted by my Facebook and Twitter timelines). I hadn’t dug into it. He sent me an article and shared some of his thoughts. I ended up finding another article and shared some of mine. We broke out of that conversation when he sent me a gif of the Warriors-Cavaliers game that was on (life comes at you fast, and apparently so does the Internet). This is pretty typical of our conversations, and of the conversations I have with other close friends.
As a journalist, it’s fascinating to observe how I, and those around me, actually use the news. It’s something that the savvier new media organizations, like Buzzfeed, have keyed into:
Stories are how we learn, and it’s how we relate to each other. My media consumption habits reflect that. We share stories with each other to start or continue conversations. To say, this concerns me, what do you think about it? To say, this is ridiculous, or this is amazing, or Jesus, did you see that shot?? In effect, we share media to create proximity — to bring each other closer.
