It has reached the point where my media use is, in one word,
shameful. What starts as watching a spot of telly and checking my Facebook ends
in 195 minutes of checking everyone's Facebook and 290 minutes of lackluster
home videos and teen wizard films.
During last week's JOUR1111 lecture, I was hanging onto
every word of our guest speaker Skye Doherty, agreeing how groovy text is and
losing myself in the frantic world of newspapers. And yet even that very night,
I meandered on home to observe overweight people eating and jiggling and I
loved every minute of it.
The inverted pyramid model. Also represents the quality of my media use; where the top represents most important, and the bottom least, I generally sit just under the lowermost point.
We were informed how text is fast, flexible and allows
complete control, not dissimilar to a snazzy running shoe. Text dominates
online, and the addition of hypertext allows multiple online platforms and the
opportunity to explore, aggregating aspects of the story into other web
features. Text is emails, blogs, Facebook, comments and Twitterfeeds. I guess
this means I'm exposed to a hell of a lot of text.
While sitting on Facebook for hours is in poor form, this headline is anything but. Take note though: clever headlines might make your story difficult to locate in a web search.
I expected my media use to be incessant, as there's not a
minute I'm not engaging myself somehow, but the quality of it is embarrassing.
"Yes, I'm really enjoying journalism, loving lectures
and studying heaps!" I blurt out to friends, failing to mention how I
spent the previous night playing Simpsons on my GameBoy and religiously
checking my PayPal.
I like to glamorise myself as a prod-user, accessing
the features of Web 3.0 by targeting individual demographics on my sub-par
Tumblr. My week 3 JOUR1111 lecture left me with the knowledge to include keywords,
links and metadata in my online content to specifically zone in on such
audiences. I was also advised that excerpts, or tid-bits of your story that summarise it in an incredibly interesting and alluring way, can be helpful for gaining readership to your story. RSS feeds and Twitter only fuel this popularity contest.
Although at this point, the most I can hope for is that we don't get marked down for spending most of our waking hours hovering in front of a glowing screen.
A prime example of a head-cocking snippet. Can you resist to click?!
Although at this point, the most I can hope for is that we don't get marked down for spending most of our waking hours hovering in front of a glowing screen.