MEDIA JOURNAL / DIARY ASSIGNMENT
You will be graded on the written detailed analysis and reflections of the media you consumed and observed within your media diary. That is, do you make sense of the overall patterns of mainstream media using critical thinking skills?
As with any written assignment, you should still give your work a once over- spell check and proof read. Excessive typos will hurt your grade.
You are also graded on the thoroughness of your media diary AND analysis. The analysis part should be 3-5 pages double-spaced. You will receive full credit if you keep a relatively close track of your media use (we are always surrounded by media, so there shouldn't be too many gaps during a day). I don't expect you to keep track of every second of your media use, I am looking for a general sense of what media you consumed during a given day (i.e. watched news in morning, listened to music on the way to work or school, surfed the net 10 times while doing homework- looked at ESPN, NYT, etc., listened to radio while doing homework, and so on).
The more time you put into this assignment, the likelier your grade will be higher.
Diary inclusions:
Date
Time- time of day you consumed a particular media
Duration- how long you spend with it. You may (as I do) check various websites several times a day. In this instance, you can just give me a total amount of time. For example, I checked ESPN.com 5 times yesterday, and spent 30 minutes viewing articles and watching clips.
Content- Record the content you're accessing- fictional novel, sit com, drama, music sports, etc.
Medium- What medium did you use? Internet (via phone or computer), TV, Radio, etc. Who you were with- with friends, with family, by yourself?
Whether it was intentional or unintentional exposure. Coming home to watch The House Wives of Orange County or Jersey Shore would be intentional. Hearing music or programming while out at a bar may not be intentional- unless that was the reason you went there.
Description of media encounter & additional notes- Give a brief summary of your media encounter. For example, watched a movie with friends at movie theatre, listened to music on ipod while riding the bus, watched TV while falling asleep, etc.