My Media Consumption Journal — Minority in the News Media
Devices that carry media have become more diverse — from radio, television, magazines, and newspapers to smart phones and tablets. Last week, I recorded my media consumption habits within 48 hours. And I discovered that 90 percent of my news sources come from social media and I spent most of time on my phone and laptop rather than newspapers or magazines. Most importantly, as a Chinese student who study in the United States, I get news and information not only from Facebook and Twitter, but also from many Chinese social media platforms, such as Weibo and WeChat.
I don’t see myself as a news junkie, and most of the time, my news sources depend on the notifications from social media platforms and news apps — such as CNN News and Wall Street Journal. During my 48 hour study, I checked my WeChat messages at about 10:00 a.m. It’s not only a common tool for me to text my friends and families back in China, but also a place where I subscribe to newsletters from many Chinese news outlets to know what’s happening in both China and America.
I found from my 48 hour study that, except for science and tech news (which is related to my field of interest), news about China and Asian American community easily catch my attention. WeChat eats up a lot of time in my life. I read my subscriptions — such as Chinese in LA, College Daily, Medical World, and People (Chinese magazine) — almost every day. When I find something worth to read, I share with my WeChat contacts because I think it may interest them as well. Therefore, I feel connected to my friends and families, even though they are in another country.
This reminds me of Dana Chinn’s questions for a news organization in my Monetization class: What are your targeted customers? What does the news organization need to know to reach them? What is the news org’s strategy? Who are its competitors? What makes it unique? Chinese in LA publishes news that’s only related to Chinese American community, and its website gets a total daily visitors of almost one million. College Daily only serves Chinese students who study in North America and has about 100,000 subscribers.
Besides, I found that although I spend more time on Chinese platform than American platform, I like reading articles on Twitter and Facebook, especially seeing how western media write about news in China. I only skim on Twitter and Facebook. But it’s always good for a journalist to look at different opinions on the same thing.
One thing that I noticed on my own but wasn’t shown in my 48 hour study is that I used to get international news from Chinese news outlets, because Chinese is my first language and I can skim the news quickly. Only if I find something I really want to know more about, I will Google the story and look into western media.
The 48-hour media journal only records a small part of my life, but reflects a bigger part of my media consumption habits. From a macro perspective, there is an increasing demand for Chinese media in America, because of a rising population of Chinese student’s enrollment in American schools and immigration. For most existing Chinese news media in America, they consider their main responsibility as to effectively inform Chinese American community of local events, but their news sources are still very limited compared to any main stream media.
