What have you learned about your own
media use and how you access news content?
Over the
summer holidays I broadened my outlook on current affairs by downloading the
BBC news app and paying close attention to news on the TV as well as social
media sites such as Facebook and Twitter which provided an insight into the way
media in the 21st century adapts to different audiences. The
majority of the time I get news from social media websites such as, twitter,
Facebook and Snapchat as these are the sites I spend most time looking at. However,
sometimes I don’t feel like these sites are reliable place to get information
from as they aren’t always accurate. However, on some occasions I look on the
BBC news app as I am sure that this is a reliable place to get information
from, this is because it is government funded and has to follow certain
guidelines for it to be aired.
Over the
past few weeks our homework was to pay close to the BBC news app, I found
keeping up with what’s goes on in the world interesting, particularly when its
topics I’m interested in. we needed to look for news however, when we saw
something we were interested in we were set to note it down and say which
platform we got the information from. I then looked over my results and found
the main source I got my information from and decided where it was a reliable
site. I found that i mostly found my news on social media sites, such as
Snapchat, Facebook and twitter as I found that these sites grabbed my attention
more than the news shown on the BBC news app or on the TV. This may be due to
the fact some of the news shown on social media sites aren’t always accurate
and are there for entertainment purposes rather than educating the readers.
This may be the reason I go further than the title when reading news on social
media. On some occasions when I find news on social media sites I would go onto
the news app to see if they were accurate.
During lesson we had the task to carry out
research and find out different ways students in our class find out news. From
this research I found that the younger generation ages 17 to 18 are more likely
to find information about the world online on sites such as Facebook, twitter,
Snapchat and the BBC news app. This is because going on these sites are more
convenient and quick as it’s well-known that people of this age are on their
phones a lot. However when looking at where older people got there news from,
they are less likely to get it from social media sites and apps and find things
out via the TV or newspapers. This wasn’t a shock to me as I am familiar with
the fact older people aren’t as confident with social media sites and the
internet. I am 17 and the main source I get
news from is via social media. This is because I am on it a lot and if
something catches my eye I will read further, I see news stories on site such
as snapchat. This is because on this I am subscribed to categories which I’m interested
in meaning I’m more likely to read further because the stories are things I’m interested
in. this is similar to the BBC news app which I have, as I have noted which
stories I’m interested in once again I get a notification when new stories come
in which I’m interested in. however when reading stories on the BBC news app I am
sure that the are genuine other than when reading on social media I’m not
always convinced that there true.
One piece of
news which took my interest in the past few weeks was about an earth quake in
Italy. I received a notification from the app and read further as it caught my
eye, the title that caught my eye was ‘Italy earthquake
toll rises to 297 after two die of injuries’. From reading more I found that
over 4000 people had died from the earthquake. After reading I didn’t question
if the information is true, as I know for a fact that it is. As BBC news is different
to other news sources as is it funded by households across the UK by the
annual TV licence. And all news broadcasted by them isn’t abbreviated in order
to grab attention.
Thanks for this Emily. Some interesting reflections on your own media use when it comes to news consumption. It sounds like you prefer to use social media and it may be the place where you are more likely to find out about an event/story (it acts as a portal) but you have a healthy mistrust of some of the content on there.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end you started to repeat yourself a little bit. Perhaps you could have reflected on the different interests amongst your peer group or whether or not you feel there is a generational shift away from TV and radio.
Are you more likely to take an interest in a subject that your friends are talking about and how does that impact upon your news consumption? Also, do you think that the ability to choose our own news is making us better or worse informed about the world around us?
Personally, I thing there are some interesting points on here about your own media usage, and the way in which you found it.
ReplyDeleteI find it very intriguing that you use social media for most of the media, and can relate with you as I am the same on that note. I can also agree with you when you raise the point that some media on social media such as Facebook, can be unreliable. Which social media site in particular do you believe to be the most unreliable and why?
Emily you have made some very valuable points!! I find them very relatable which is probably why I specifically enjoyed reading it so much.
ReplyDeleteDo you believe that there are major companies which hold the most power over the media and what gets published?