Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Media Diary - Wong Siu Tan 51241944
Media Diary - Wong Siu Tan 51241944
20/10 1:00am- iPod Tianya & other Watch news and blogs
2:30am applications with iPod before sleep
20/10 11:00am- e-newspaper NY Times & Watch news online before
12:00pm on iPod CNN get up
20/10 12:30pm- Online Youku Video Watch TV series while
2:00pm Video having lunch
20/10 2:00pm- Internet Google, Search information about
5:00pm websites Wikipedia the film GIS online
20/10 5:00pm- Social Massager Discuss the film with
6:00pm Network partners through MSN
20/10 6:00pm- Movie Asian Short Watch lasted short films in
9:00pm Theatre films a movie theatre
20/10 9:00pm- Email Gmail & Arrange emails and delete
10:00pm Hotmail the old and useless emails
20/10 – 10:00pm- iPod facebook, Watch blogs and reply
21/10 01:00am twitter, renren messages online
21/10 10:30am- iPod iTunes Listen to music while
11:00am having body exercises
21/10 11:00am- TV TVB Watch TV news when
12:00pm having breakfast
21/10 4:00pm- Internet Douban, Sina, Watch blogs and news and
6:00pm websites Tianya, twitter share some to friends
through MSN and twitter
21/10 6:00pm- magazine& Times, South Read them when having
8:00pm newspaper China Post dinner alone
21/10 9:00pm- iPod GPS Map Find a friend’s house
9:30pm application through iPod applications
21/10 10:00pm- TV MTR Watch news on MTR
11:40pm Commercial tv
22/10 1:00am- iPod Facebook, Watch blogs and reply
2:30am Twitter messages online
22/10 6:30am- iPod Twitter, Post photos on twitter
7:00am Xiaonei when waiting for the plane
22/10 7:00am- Email Gmail & City Check emails and reply
8:00am Webmail 2.0 through iPod
22/10 11:00am- Cell Phone SMS Send SMS to friends and
11:30am ask them to pick me from
the airport
22/10 1:00pm- TV Local news Watch TV on car with
2:00pm friends
22/10 4:00pm- iPod Facebook, Watch blogs and news on
6:00pm Twitter, renren my iPod
22/10 10:00pm- TV Lust Caution Watch the film Lust
11:30pm Caution on the motel’s TV
23/10 9:00am- iPod Email Check email and reply
10:00am messages
23/10 10:00am- TV Local news Watch news on TV when
12:00pm having breakfast
23/10 1:30pm- Movie Confession Watch the lasted Japanese
SM2007 Culture, Society & New Technologies
Based on my media diary, I could say that I mainly receive information from the
internet websites instead of traditional paper media like newspapers. It is also obvious
that the iPod plays an important role in my life as a “mobile information station”. In
next paragraphs I will deeply analyze my media diary and talk about the reasons why
Firstly, I want to summary the different kinds of media that I used in the last week.
They can be divided into two groups: the pure information provider and the
information exchange center. The provider includes such media like newspaper,
magazine, sina, yahoo, google and so on. While the exchange center includes Blog,
Twitter, and those social network websites like Facebook. The diary shows that I
spend more time on exchanging information with people online than just receiving
messages passivity. It is because the Web 2.0 has provided us an open space to leave
and receive messages freely. Comparing to three years ago when I was a middle
school student, the internet has changed a lot. In the past, computers are mainly used
internet. However, most computer users at that time were not familiar with blog and
twitter. And audience did not have much chance to share their opinions after receiving
information from the internet. But since the social network became more popular,
most of us have changed the habits of web surfing and got used to receive opinions
from different people and angles. Also, instead of watching others’ work, we
gradually learned how to post and share our own things on the websites. For example,
SM2007 Culture, Society & New Technologies
we may use blogs to replace the paper diaries. On one hand, computer users nowadays
have less privacy than before, but on the other hand, we are closer to the public than
the past. One of the advantages of sharing information with people online is that we
learn to observe and comment things in multiple ways and different angles of view.
Besides, the mediums of media that I used are basically electronics which relying on
the internet. For me, the paper media (newspapers and magazines) nowadays could be
replaced by computers and Televisions. The main reason is due to the efficiency of
network. For an instance, when the earthquake in May 12th 2008 happened, some
people described the situations on their twitters in time and the news was sonly
received by thousands of users online. However, it took at least half a day for
newspapers and magazines to publish the news to the public. Therefore the
information on those paper media became less useful for people like me who wanted
to know the latest news about the huge disaster. Another good quality of internet is
that it is cheaper than the traditional media because most information online is free.
However, the online information is usually less reliable than the paper media since the
law of these areas has not been wholly set up. These may sometimes mislead us and
cause serious problem. For example, after a short period of the 5.12, a young hacker
which said that there would be a serious of earthquakes in Xi’an in a few days. This
wrong information caused panic and chaos to the society. Large number of schools
and companies were affected by the message. And after two days, a local newspaper
Secondly, I’d like to talk about the environmental factors that may affect the ways in
which I use the media. As I am a university student, I have to get used of using the
school’s website and the student online systems (City Webmail & AIMS). It trains me
to use computers in different ways, such like submit essay, download course notes or
communicate with teaching staff. These skills may help me to change my old habits
of using media. For an instance, I used to make appointments with teachers face to
face or by phone while now I could just send an email to do so. Besides, the social
policy is also a factor that affects the way people use the media. It usually has related
to the freedom of speech. And one classic example is the GFW in mainland China.
GFW is the short term of Great Firewall. The purpose of this firewall is to block some
websites in one or more regions of People’s Republic of China under the country’s
policy of Internet censorship1. And it blocks some famous websites like New York
Times, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and so on. This will definitely affect the way
people use the internet since it limits their freedom of reading and sharing information
online. And once the government controls the internet, the audience may not be able
to receive much information other than the mainstream one. And it again might have
chance to mislead people by blocking true facts that are not beneficial to the
government.
Last but not the least, I will talk about the importance of iPod Touch plays in my
media life. iPod Touch is a MP4 designed by the Apple Store. But in my point of
view it is far more than just a MP4. It combines the functions of music players and
palm computers which known as PDAs. And because of its well developed software
markets, the users could download more than 100,000 softwares from the App Store.
1
Wikipedia. Date Access: 28/10/2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
SM2007 Culture, Society & New Technologies
This provides lots of convenience to iPod users and even changes their ways of using
media. The several of news applications start to replace the newspapers provided in
MTR stations. We see people in MTR read news and browse websites with their
iPods or iPhones. For students like me, iPod is a portable and useful tool to listen to
music, check email, read news and social with friends. According to the Apple Store’s
research, iPod Touch has replaced iPod and becomes the most popular MP4 in the
world.
In a word, I’m a “typical” person who could not live without computers. And the way
I use media is mainly through Internet. The factors that affect my use of media
include the geographic location, age, my occupation in the society and so on.