Personal Journalism

In my Mass Communications 101 class I have a report on Personal Journalism. I started with our text book, which is actually up to date, but then I looked deeper and added a few things that I talk about on this blog.

Below is my paper, which is a speech on Personal Journalism, you can also see and download my PowerPoint at the bottom.

A Google search for “personal journalism” will give you millions of results, most of which are personal media players. The wave of personal media today seems to be driven by the internet, as it is one of the best ways to mass communicate. To look deeply into personal media we can start with the player. Google gives us results for personal media devices, such as TiVO or other Digital Video Recorders, Media on demand, and digital music players. All of these items are examples of personal media. Our book lists a few of the new technologies of personal journalism, but I have added a few to this list.

Before the internet was massive, many would say that personal journalism could be seen in diaries, scrap booking, or just choosing what sources of media to watch, listen to, or read.

Let us start with players, take the iPod for example, released publicly in evolving in the 21st century. With this little device radio is becoming outdated, why listen to music you may want to listen to when you can listen to what you know you want to listen to. Now Apple is on the frontlines of television and even DVD sales through selling TV shows and movies on iTunes.

Personal media and journalism is made possible through other devices such as TiVO, which allows viewers to digitally record content, fast forward, pause and rewind live TV, as well as easily set it up to record your favorite content. This obviously makes the experience more personal and eliminates what the viewer does not want to see. Many are up in arms about this though, according to an article in the Arizona Republic “Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor and media watcher at DePauw University stated “People are ending up exposing themselves only to the ideas, issues and entertainment that suits them. And I don’t think that’s healthy in the long run.””

Personal journalism is a very simple concept, and has been taken to many extremes due to the success of internet. It is simply receiving, or delivering the media that you want, when you want it. We started with the iPod, now we know that you can listen to music, watch TV and even movies now, but how would you receive any form of news on this device? Simple, through podcasting.

Podcasting has been around since 2004, but became more successful when it hit the iTunes music store in early 2005, a podcast is a form of syndicated news. By going to the podcast directory in iTunes you can subscribe to any form of podcast that you want. From CNN news to Comedy Central’s stand up, once you subscribe every time there is a new edition to the show, could be daily, weekly, monthly, you automatically receive that new episode. Podcasting started very independent, it was something that regular people were doing far before it was popular among the networks. Anyone can create and distribute their own work podcast and have it listed on iTunes with the big names in media.

Podcasts are syndicated through a form of technology called RSS, which has been around before podcasting, it actually started in news. You may have seen an RSS feed on a newspaper’s website, or a blog of some kind. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it allows users to subscribe to that site, with a reader, and receive notifications of new articles or entries. This is personal journalism as well because it allows you to receive only the news you wish to receive.

We talked about how easy it is to become a podcaster and produce that personal media, but you can also produce personal journalism as well. Weblogs, or blogs have been around since about 2000 and are a way for people to write about anything they want. Many people think blogs are a way for people to have an online diary, while this can be the case; there are many blogs that give news to a group of people. There are blogs on literally any topic, as there are over 3 million registered blogs today, tracked by the blog service Technorati. You can find blogs about sports, technology, world news, pop culture, anything. This eliminates the big corporations who are giving most public news and allows it to become personal. On blogs people can leave comments on stories, where the author will respond directly back and they can also be tracked with RSS. Slowly, we are seeing the big media companies join this route of personal journalism, often times at newspapers we will see blogs of certain writers, which make the media look as though they are independent and personal, like most bloggers.

The internet is the main way to receive content that you want, and there are a number of ways to track large media while you are online. Digg.com is a social news website that allows its users to submit any news story and Digg, or Vote, it to the front page, which features the top Dugg stories of the day. Users have a profile, which has the stories they have Dugg and it allows them to follow their friends stories as well. This is a great example of personal media, because it allows the users to democratically deicide what news is worth making to the front page, whether from CNN or a small blogger, thousands of sources have made it big on Digg. Digg even has their own podcast, Diggnation which provides a news format of the top Dugg stories each week.

Business week describes our generation as Generation Y, at age 18 I fall into this category; I am one who “Would choose the internet over cable television.” Our generation is at the edge of personal journalism; we are making it and absorbing it altogether. The internet is revolutionizing personal journalism by providing it on demand, to watch, read, or listen to whenever we wish from whomever we wish. Personal journalism is much more than a diary or scrapbook now it is the digital age of news. Since there are a millions of news sources being media literate is especially important and needs to be something that we take into account before we pursue any new form of media.

Works Cited

“Personal Journalism.” Technorati. 16 Sept. 2006. Technorati, INC. 16 Sept. 2006 .

Neuborne, Ellen. “Generation Y.” Business Week. 12 July 2005. McGraw Hill. 16 Sept. 2006 .

Haller, Sonja. “IPod Era.” Arizona Central. 12 Sept. 2005. 15 Sept. 2006 .

“Digg.Com News.” Digg.Com. Digg LLC. 12 Sept. 2006 .

Campbell, Richard. Media and Culture. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2006.

Personal Journalism PowerPoint