MEDIA CONSUMPTION.
Having come into class two weeks into the start of the semester, there aren’t many people in our classes that I’ve met and become familiar with. But I’m confident when I say that there’s no one who shares the exact same Twitter following list as me. Some choose to follow film related accounts, while others prefer having a celebrity-based Twitter feed. With such a wide variety of content to choose from and the liberty to follow and unfollow at will, it’s impossible to not have a completely personal, ideal following list.
My own Twitter timeline, along with my Facebook feed and Internet browser bookmarks, reflects my personal interests. If you were to stumble upon my feeds perchance, you’d find yourself metaphorically knee deep in fantaken photos of Korean girl group members or anime fanart. To the average journalism student, this sort of content doesn’t seem to hold much value as media, but checking up on Twitter every morning allows me to keep up to date with the schedules and news concerning these areas of interest.
In addition to the aforementioned, very popular social networking platforms, I frequent Korean news search engines and sites for translated news pieces. I check and refresh Naver, Daum, Netizenbuzz and iChart an average of 4-5 times a day, as though not to miss out on breaking celebrity or political stories.
Because I’m on my phone so often, conversation also makes up a large portion of my day. Using Kakaotalk, Line, Whatsapp and Snapchat allows me to keep updated with the weather, important news, and the lifestyles of my friends and family, who are spread out around the world. As the daughter of an expatriate and an international student, staying social online is important, as there’s a lot of global content I can acquire from doing so.
But of all of the apps and sites I frequent, the media platform I’m most committed to would be Tumblr! I run a fanblog for a girl group, that I update almost daily. On that blog, I provide updates of the group, archive fantaken pictures, and translate available information that is related to the group. In addition to this blog, I have a personal photoblog that exposes my interest in plain minimalistic aesthetics, modern Asian culture, fashion trends, and popular music.
It’s easy to make assumptions about a person after glimpsing the content on their media feeds, but a constantly evolving online world guarantees a change in its users as well. I personally hope to leave the boundaries of my personal interests and be able to consume a wider range of media. Can a semester of challenging myself to look at a bigger picture overcome years of habitual website refreshing? Only time will tell.
from the desk of a journalism student 