When tracking my media use for a full day, I was surprised to realize just how much content I consume on a regular Friday. To give an overview of my daily routine, I typically work from 9-5, come home, do homework, and then around 9:00 I’ll make dinner with my boyfriend and we’ll watch a movie or tv show as we eat before going to bed a few hours later. It sounds simple, but throughout the day, even when working for eight hours, I still consumed a lot of media.
The first thing I noticed was that I am someone who goes on my phone every chance I get. I started off my morning at 7:30 and promptly looked through my instagram feed. I don’t follow a lot of dedicated news accounts on there, but I do follow a lot of magazines that occasionally post journalistic content such as Dazed and Paper. Right now, a lot of this revolves around the happenings of Paris Fashion Week. I typically don’t have the time to read articles from these magazines in the morning, but on this day, one about the designer brand Comme Des Garcon models of all colors sporting cornrows on the runway stood out to me, so I gave the entire article a read. This was the only full news article I read for the day. As I got ready for work, I watched a couple of YouTube videos related to veganism and cooking, checked Instagram one last time, and then headed out. While at work our phones have to be put away. I did scroll through my twitter feed for about 15 minutes on my lunch break. On Twitter I follow more news accounts like CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. This is typically where I get my news content. Every couple of days I will go to the actual websites and catch up on things I may have missed just from social media, but on this day I did not. While I may be following more news accounts on Twitter, I noticed that I still pay more attention to posts made by my friends and tend to skim over news posts unless they are important, breaking stories.
When I got home from work I watched one more YouTube video relating to fashion before starting on homework. This day I mainly just had to read and take notes for an upcoming quiz. The textbook is titled Pastimes: The Context of Contemporary Leisure, 6th Edition, by Ruth V. Russell. I checked my Instagram feed a few times while working, but wasn’t really consuming any news content, just posts from friends and influencers that I follow.
I ended the night by watching the movie Reservoir Dogs followed by a YouTube video titled “27 Things You Didn’t Know About Reservoir Dogs”.
As for the credibility of the media sources I visited I have ranked them as the following below:
Paper Magazine- 6
Dazed and Confused Magazine- 6
Insider Magazine- 7.5
New York Times- 10
CNN- 10
Washington Post- 10
NPR- 10
Complex- 5
Vogue Runway- 9
I ranked both Paper and Dazed Magazine as a 6 because both of them tend to be pretty biased. They have a lot of opinion writing style content and tend to have clear viewpoints in their articles that are news related. I believe to be a credible news source, the content should be neutral toned, free of bias, and focus on the facts.
Insider I ranked a 7.5. I don’t read a lot of articles from this platform, so I feel like I need to engage with it more to give it a proper rating. From what I can tell, Insider seems to be doing good journalistic work. They’re unbiased and and are transparent about sources, however I am always skeptical of news platforms that are new to me.
Complex, which is an online fashion news blog, I ranked as a 5. I put them below Paper and Dazed because they don’t have as wide of a range of content they create, and they as well tend to be biased. I know their have also been multiple instances in the past of them not doing thorough reporting jobs and facing backlash for this. While their articles and posts are entertaining, I take them with a grain of salt.
The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, and NPR I all ranked as a 10 because I know that they are well trusted news media outlets that value credibility. For the most part their articles are free of a biased tone and present the reader with important information that has been fact checked. I know that when I read articles from these outlets that I will be able to understand the situation being discussed and form my own opinions about it.
Lastly, I ranked Vogue Runway as a 9. Vogue Runway is Twitter/Instagram fashion news platform that focuses on just that; news. I think they are credible because they are simply reporting the happenings of the fashion world and not really making any commentary on them like many other fashion outlets do.
