Towson
MCOM 101 Journals

In MCOM 101, we were required to write weekly "journal entries" based on a prompt. Here is week one:

Week 1: Media Log
Keep an hour-by-hour daily diary for two consecutive days that lists all the media you were exposed to or "consumed." Write down the dates that you carried out this exercise. Cover all the hours except when you are sleeping. Indicate time spent studying (reading books); include billboards you drove past and barely noticed; TV ads you overheard while casually passing through a room; magazines/ newspapers you flipped through; mail you received; radio—in the car, bedroom or on a headset; phone messages from salespeople, movies at the theater and on your VCR; and TV shows watched. Create a chart that breaks down the average number of hours you were exposed to various media (TV, radio, books, magazines, computer, phone, etc.). Describe the patterns that you see in your media habits. Which activity surprises you the most in terms of the amount of time spent on it?

Monday, September 8
9:15am: Rise and shine; turn on TV briefly; flip past CNN and FOX for a second; glance at CNN.com
10am to 12pm: Class; read Towerlight on the way to Math, and before Mass Comm
12pm: Lunch at Susq. TV on in the corner. Music playing in the Union.
1 to 3:30pm: Nap (what a tough life I have!)
3:30 to 5:00pm: Errands, early dinner. Music playing in the Union. SGA billboard promoting events. Mail from Chevy Chase Bank.
5 to 6pm: Dinner
Evening: List of various random things (visited a friend in Tower C, helped with a math assignment, etc.) Heard several TV ads while in my friend's room.
~9:30pm: Half-watch MTV while I do English homework.
10pm: "Newsnight" on CNN for ‘the whip', then bed.

Tuesday, September 9
7:40am: Wake up, click on CNN for three seconds, then off to class.
8:00 to 10:45am: Class
~11am: Read a bit of Sunday's Washington Post that I had yet to read.
11:10am: "CNN News alert" text message on my cell phone about a bombing in Israel.
11:45 to 1:15pm: Walk into town for lunch at Subway. Pass advertisements on taxis and busses. Music playing in Subway.
1:30 to 3pm: Sat at Paws writing Taste of Baltimore preview for Towerlight. Televisions broadcast various stations; music plays in Union; I had Fox News on in the background
~3 to 4pm: "College 101" lecture (cover for the Towerlight)
7pm to 8:30pm: URG information meeting
8:30 to 11pm: Instant messaging, studying, NBC on in the background
~10pm: A few minutes of the "Harry Potter" movie down the hall
11pm: Watch television show downloaded from Internet (commercials erased)

Both days:
All the time: Spam e-mail
Off and on, usually muted, many hours of the day: CNN/local Baltimore stations
Visited several times a day: cnn.com, medianews.org, lostremote.com, instapundit.com, msnbc.com, drudgereport.com, etc.

A chart of precise times is unfathomable - do I count every minute the TV is on? What if I'm not actively listening to it? I usually only un-mute it for headlines and ‘breaking news.' How do I count reading paragraphs of a newspaper article? Perhaps the point is, our media consumption is subconscious; it can not just be added up into a tidy round number.

Do without all forms of the mass media for two consecutive days (note the dates) and record your feelings about the experience. Describe the plusses and minuses of going without mass media and how you used your time. How successful were you in avoiding all mass media?

I thought about doing this on September 10 and 11. Then I realized I couldn't - the 9/11 anniversary would be live on television that second morning, and I'm the type of person who watches that. I was frustrated that many people barely seemed to recognize the date.

And then I thought about doing this on September 12 and 13. But that's the start of the weekend, and I consume even more media then than on an average weekday - movies, music, magazines, television, the list continues.

It's an unfair assignment, as I'm sure you realize. (Especially for someone who looks forward to reading Newsweek and watching Newsnight and listening to NewsTalk!)

The point is, I could never be successful in avoiding all mass media. I guess I'm not the type to live out in a log cabin in the Appalachian woods. I could decrease my use of mass media, but I'd probably end up reading more books - another form of mass communication. And my bookshelf is long enough as it is.