Wednesday 26 January 2011

Homework for Ms Warrington's year 12 students

Ms W's students only!
Keep a one-week diary of your media use, in detail. Each day, comment on how your
own experiences of media consumption illustrate (show) wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour. (Starting Wednesday 25th January, finishing Tuesday 1st February)
What this means is: record any media you consume and what technologies were involved, then see if you can link that experience to the concepts we've been learning about. Here's an example: "Today a friend texted me asking for the name of a song I'd played to her at a party. I used my phone to email her a link to a YouTube video of a version of the song that I like. I listened to it on my laptop when I got home. I often discover new songs I like when listening to an online radio station called LastFM where I can use the name of a band I like as a tag and it creates a radio station around my own tastes. This media experience shows how much more power consumers have these days than they used to; the internet has made music global and YouTube and LastFM are both examples of "prosumer" technologies. The person who posted the video of the song on YouTube was an ordinary consumer at a concert, taking video probably on a phone or small digital camera. My LastFM station is "my own" - created around my personal tastes by the LastFM website. This also relates to how the convergence of media affects marketing these days: LastFM is free for consumers - it is a marketing device for the music industry because it gets new consumers interested in bands they haven't heard of but might like. If you like a song you hear on LastFM there is a link to iTunes where you can buy it."

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