Assessment

I'm defiantly not a person who finds interest in the news I find it boring and I'd much rather watching anything else in all honesty, but that's on TV. When it came to doing our summer work we had to note down what news we heard and where we heard it. In my results none of the news stories I heard were off TV, however seeing the news stories which I did hear and where from surprised me.

Most families after a long day of work or school come together at night to enjoy their dinner together and the majority of these families will have the TV playing in the back ground possibly with the news on. I know I used to. However, as my life's changed due to me being at school till six at night some days or I start work at five before my mums even gets home or my brother getting his own house so there's less of us, sitting down having a family meal just doesn't happen anymore. And until now as I've had to address how I find my news, I thought that watching the news at tea time with my family had a large role in the way I found out news. However, as I did my research over the summer it didn't! I imagine yes if I took the time to watch the news I would find out more news much quicker then I possibly do but it wasn't essential.

One of the main media outputs I used to gather my news was by the radio, this surprised me as I was expecting this to be by social media but that was my second way of finding out. I feel like if I had done my research before the summer this would have been the other way around however as I passed my driving test at the beginning of summer I've been listening to the radio in my car therefore hearing the news more. This shows how the change in lifestyle just from walking to school and work to driving has affected my media usage. Whenever listening to the radio news you can’t just listen to the headline you have to just listen to what the presenter is saying whether that’s the headline the main story line or the whole thing. News stories which I heard from the radio such as the next royal baby on the way, and another hurricane in America these stories I can’t imagine that the radio would make up stories like this, and the majority of radios tell the same news so I believe their news is trust worthy. The news stories you mainly heard on the radio are there to make people aware of what’s happening around them it’s not usually gossip or shocking news but to make people of the outer world.

The second most common way of me finding my news was through social media which was expected as I use Facebook and Snap-chat every day. Yes! Sometimes my news feed is full of rubbish or funny videos but when I began my research I started to notice a lot of news does come up on my feed. Through the summer I noticed both news off a news company such as BBC news or SKY news came up frequently or some unknown sites had news popping up in my news feed. News from SKY and BBC I find trust worthy because like BBC they are paid by tax payers meaning they have a duty to tell the world real news. Unlike SKY who could bend the truth to their will because they don’t have a legal duty to tell the truth. With the websites that aren’t well-known or just random things that pop up you can’t really trust them because it could just be gossip or a way to target reputations, such as trying to ruin a person’s reputation by starting a rumor using young, gullible minds. Through the summer I saw news stories on Facebook such as the breakup of Angelina and Brad this could have been false to draw attention to the couple however, it was then confirmed through magazines and the radio. Sometimes the news comes up on my news feed which is shared by my friends on Facebook, which means I wouldn’t have seen it without them sharing it. This is just another way that news found its way to my attention.

Since being back as school we were given the task to download the BBC News app to see if it affects the way we find our news and media usage. The result to this wasn’t surprising to me because I knew that using this app would increase my awareness of the news because as I said at the beginning of this assessment I don’t use my time to watch news. So having this app, which allowed me to select what type of news I was more interested than others. Now with this app I find news out as soon as its reveled to the public and my phone alerts me to these new stories, this makes find out the news easier and faster because it goes straight to my phone and I know its reliable facts as it’s the BBC. However, because I see the headlines I never feel the need to click on them and read into them more, which I feel indicates that even though I have better access to the news and it’s much easier it doesn’t affect the way I feel about news as it doesn’t make me any more interested than before.

Overall, the way I find my news is very modern, rather social media or radio or possibly their new BBC app however this doesn’t affect my point of view on news .However, it does show even if someone like me who finds no interest in the news still somehow is effected by it.