NM2104 Assignment 1: Media Diary Prompt & Guidance

Prompt

For this assignment – a short research project based on your life! – I want you to keep
track of ALL the media you use, how much time you use, in which contexts you use,
what you use them for, and how you interpret your media use behaviors. This
assignment has three purposes: 1) experimenting with inductive reasoning; 2) collecting
and generating quantitative and qualitative data; 3) experimenting with thick
descriptions and analysis. You are required to submit a 2-3 page & double-spaced essay
(not including media diary).

From the academic perspective, conducting research on yourself is also called

autoethnography. Simply put, autoethnography is a form of qualitative research that
researchers explore personal experience and connect personal stories to larger social
structures. In other words, researchers study themselves. The definition is introduced
just for the background—you don’t need to delve into it as it won’t affect your
assignment.

By saying media, I mean different types of medium that could deliver information,
communication, meaning, and culture, such as books, newspapers, televisions, videos,
films, mobile phones, computers, tablets, all digital ones, and more if could justify.

Your assignment (10 points) includes three components:

1) 2-day dairy in the form of charts (2 points in total);

2) a short paragraph that summarizes some patterns of your media use behaviors,
which you need to use and demonstrate quantitative data (2 points);

3) a paragraph that narrates how your life is (or isn’t) intertwined with media.
Please provide a vivid description of media's roles in your life and provide your
interpretations of the impacts of media on your life (6 points). This paragraph
should include two elements. First, narrating means thick descriptions. It requires
a detailed description of how you use media in the two days. I understand that
your media use behaviors in the two days might be multifold. Therefore, you
don’t need to describe every aspect of media use recorded in the two days. It is
sufficient to select some illustrative aspects, based upon which to construct the
thick descriptions. Second, providing your interpretations of the impacts of media
on your life means thick analysis. Thick analysis requires you to explain and
analyze your media use behaviors; for example, what does it mean to you? why do
you use media in this way? How is your media use behavior affected by external
factors, such as your friends, family, external environments? It should be noted
that thick analysis should be always based upon thick descriptions, as the latter
provides the empirical base for your former.
Fool-Proof Template for Assignment 1

1. The first step is Collecting the data (2 Points)

For 2 weekdays, keep a record of what media you use (here I mean media devices),
the length of time you use it, activities you were doing when you were using it
(what do you use media for?), the purpose of the media use (why do you use them?
(Such as talking to parents, doing assignments, relaxing, killing time, contact-
tracing, and so on), and your interpretations and feelings (making you happy/relaxed;
time-consuming).

Start from when you get up to when you go to bed.

Do you wake up to music? Do you listen to anything on

the way to school? What do you listen? (Are you taking
public transportations, riding a bike, walking?) Did you
use your phones while walking? Did you watch
Youtube on a phone or tablet before sleep? Did you
listen to any music at the gym?

Seriously, Record ALL your media use.

Example of Filled Out Diary (You could design categories yourself, as long as
cover the above-mentioned components).

Time What Media Activitiesyou Purposes (Functions) Contexts Comments

you use were
(Device) doing
(Contents)
1:00- Phone Social Media Social or After lunch, Why not
2:00pm (Instagram) Entertainment nothing to having a
do nap?
2:00pm Computer& Checking Study or I am Can’t be
- Phone Email, Social Entertainment studying focused/
4:00pm Media have to be
(Facebook) multi-
tasking

4:00- Phone Shopping Essential I am is it safe?

4:10pm (Redmart) Shopping walking
2. The second step is Summarizing some patterns of your media use.

Summarizing and calculating your quantitative data and trying to generate some patterns of your
media use. This step is illustrating how quantitative data can bring a general and big picture of
your media use.

For instance, you could suggest,

Of all communication devices, I used my phone for 10 hours, three times longer than I used my
computer.

80% of my mobile phone hours are devoted to entertainment activities, such as checking pictures
on Instagram, twittering, watching Netflix, etc.

3. The third step is writing a coherent paragraph about your media use, narrating and
interpreting your experiences with media use.

First, you need to provide a narrative by addressing questions like in which situations you use
them? What are your experiences? How do you use them? Then, you need to provide some
interpretations by asking questions as follows: How does media use affect your life? What do you
feel when you use particular types of media? What does it mean to you? what does your media use
say about who you are? How is your media use behavior is affected by social and cultural factors?
Regarding the social and cultural factors, let me give you an example. For example, I am forced to
bring my phone with me when I go to Utown, because contact-tracing is compulsory. The
existence of social requirements somehow makes mobile an essential part of my life all the time.

In the qualitative paragraph, you don’t need to cover all aspects of y our media use; That is said,
you could just focus on the most salient one or two, etc.

It is also very hard to do research on yourself because what we call observer bias. That means, if
you know that you are observing yourself, then the fact that you are observing yourself can
change how you act. And questions about how you feel are very likely to change how you feel. So,
you are encouraged to be self-reflexive to touch upon and ponder over the potential limitations
and pre-assumptions of this research.