I'm Going to Supanova

Over a week ago, I was having a lot of trouble with finding articles to write for my Reporting course. With a few ideas in mind, I emailed some people about using them as contacts. At the time I wrote the blog post, no one had emailed me back so I was worried about meeting the deadline. Since then, everything has turned around.

A few days ago, I got an email back from the publicity manager for Supanova. He informed me that there's going to be a media pass waiting for me at the Gold Coast. I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity to attend this amazing event as a journalist. The manager was even nice enough to give my friend, Rhys, a media pass, because he's going to be following me around with a camera. 

I really want to go all out on this assignment. I'm going to be recording the event and some interviews so I can make a three minute video due in May. I've been brainstorming, because I'm irritatingly limited to recording with a smartphone only. I'm currently organising getting my hands on a few items: a recently developed smartphone, microphone, microphone to iPhone adapter, extension cable, and an external audio device. 

I've never filmed, recorded, and edited an event like this, so this is a new, but scary experience. By the date, I should have everything I need for Supanova. I'm beginning to think about how I'm going to approach the event as a journalist. I'm going to film interviews with the event organiser and the attendees, the main floor, the panels and the exhibits. Both the article and the video will focus on the exhibits, activities, the fans and the atmosphere of Supanova. Closer to the date, I'll write a blog post detailing my plans further.

Here's a video from Supanova in Melbourne from last year.

Media Diary

Being able to understand and analyze the media I use is essential to how I approach journalism. My personal media use and production may also indicate where journalism and communication as an industry is currently heading. For ten days I had to log my personal media use and production and in this post present and analyze that information.

Here is some of the media I logged. I only included relevant links in this list that best represents my overall media use. You can see a more complete table of my media usage lower in the post.


Thursday 8th of March

"My australian house mate sent this onto me. Nope" - via r/wtf
"The Call of Duty generation..." - via r/gaming
Bioshock Infinite lets loose the Motorized Patriot - via Destructoid


Friday 9th of March

Played three hours of League of Legends
Heavy Rain creator's stunning short film showcases new game engine - via Games Radar
Uncharted 3 Co-op shade survival mode DLC release date set for next week - via Games Radar


Saturday 10th of March

Played an hour of Pokemon Heart Gold
Kony 2012 - via vimeo
Official Men in Black 3 Trailer - via youtube
Official All In Trailer - via youtube
Official Meeting Evil Trailer - via youtube


Sunday 11th of March

Minnesota girl alleges school privacy invasion - via CNN
Jet Set Radio Future Trailer - via youtube
Animated GIFs: The Bird of a Medium - via youtube
Extra Credits: So You Want Be a Developer (part 1) - via Penny Arcade
Played


Monday the 12th of March

The year role-playing games broke - via Joystiq
Dishonoured Info Blowout: A Stealthy Steampunk Sandbox - via gameranx


Tuesday the 13th of March

Journey Review - via GameTrailers
What song has been so beautiful it moved you to tears? I have 2. - via r/AskReddit
"Internet humor from a time before memes..." - via imgur

Wednesday the 14th of March

IGN AU Pubcast Ep. 40: A Threesome of Threequels - via IGN AU


Thursday the 15th of March

Confessions of a 'Bad' Teacher - via The New York Times


Friday the 16th of March

Watched Community


Saturday the 17th of March

Played Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty


Table of Media Use

*unit of measurement is in hours

Pie Chart of Media Use

Before I analyze and offer my opinions based on the my media diary, I feel like that I should recognise technological convergence as an issue. Technological convergence makes identifying forms of media difficult. In modern society journalism, entertainment and social networking are overlapping. Twitter is an example of this, it's used for all these purposes and more. I personally use it as a tool to find entertaining and informative content online and also connect with other journalism students, less as a form of microblogging. Technological convergence is something that journalism and communication as an industry is going to have to adapt to in order to compete. You can already see media outlets harnessing advancing technology and Web 2.0 for the purpose of spreading content easier and efficiently and creating a public sphere.

It didn't surprise me that most of the media that I consume, I discovered online, as opposed to print and televised media. I mostly instant message with friends on Skype, play videogames and browse the internet; specifically Reddit, 4chan and videogame news sites on my laptop. I also use my iPhone mainly to communicate with friends and family, stay connected to social networks and play games. I personally use online media largely because I can search for content that is specific to my interests or goals. I have a large interest in news relating to videogames, film and television that are made easily accessible with the internet. However, 71.1% of Introduction Journalism and Communication students recognised "TV" as their source of media, while only 67.8% of students use "Online newspapers". Furthermore, 51.6% of JOUR1111 acquired news from "newspapers". These statistics show that despite a large amount of students simultaneously using all three forms of media, the most popular resource of news is television.

The survey conducted of other Introduction to Journalism and Communication students shows that other students and I spend our time on the internet similarly. 61.3% of students recognise "General surfing and browsing" as a primary use of their internet; 43.1% of students also spent their time online "Reading online news". However, I don't identify Facebook as a large use of my time online, compared to 91.9% of students who do.

The biggest difference between my personal media use and other students is the amount of time spent each day on the internet. During that ten day period I spent sometimes up on eleven hours connected online with friends via Skype throughout the day. While on skype I browsed various sources of news and entertainment each day. However, only 3.5% of students surveyed indicated that they spend upwards of 6 hours online each day. These results surprised me; considering how easy it is to access the internet. It's presumed that all students own or have easy access to a computer with internet access and also 77.3% of students own an internet-enabled smart phone according to the survey. Ultimately, the survey indicates that constant internet access is completely expected of the 17-25 year old demographic. I believe that those in the field of journalism and communication are completely aware of this. Like I mentioned earlier, media is utilizing this knowledge to gain larger and more connected audiences.

By logging my personal media use over a ten day period I can say that without a doubt my relation with journalism and communication is unsurprising. Basically, my style of consuming news and entertainment is parallel with emerging forms of interaction. Traditional media is obviously still around, but it's also being reshaped and redefined by the internet. I also expect how I go about reading, listening and watching news in the future will adapt along with the altering landscape of journalism and communication.

Edit: This assignment got a 6.5 overall.

Goals and Stuff

I just checked an email about this Journalism course and apparently I have to write a blog post about every lecture. I thought I would simply be even more retrospective and write about my first lecture in JOUR1111. It was what most people would assume the first lecture of an introductory university course would be like. Bruce Redman, our lecturer, introduced himself and explained how the course would run, went over our assessment, answered our questions and tried as best he could to get us excited about journalism. He said a very quotable phrase which I'm sure he's been using for a while, "you are the journalist". I would be lying if I said it motivated me in the slightest but it did remind me that I should probably explain right here what I want to accomplish with this blog.

Journalism to me is simply a way to involve myself in my hobbies and interests and still have a job at the end of the day. I have almost no interest in politics, world news, sports and celebrities but that doesn't mean that I can't be a journalist. I'd much rather read about Pokemon, League of Legends, The Walking Dead or the Dark Knight Rises more than anything else.

So fucking awesome

Most of my days entail playing videogames, watching film and reading, watching and listening to videogame and film news. I check websites, watch reviews, listen to podcasts and have very heated discussions  with friends about geeky things. I have spent the last three days at a friend's new place watching Community while playing Magic: The Gathering because they had no internet and we all had a cold.

Imagine this but with better looking people.

I also like to think I can form sentences pretty well, so I'm essentially trying to combine the two things in the hopes I will actually be content some day.

I'm hoping that this degree will get my metaphorical foot into the metaphorical door of creative industries. If everything goes according to plan in a few years time I'd be writing for a videogame news or a film review website. If not, then I'm probably going to pick up some skills which could be applied to an array of jobs. I'm essentially hoping that journalism will point me in the direction that I want to go. So expect posts about things like how fucking incredible Bioshock Infinite is going to be.