Lauren’s Media Diary

I am going to focus on one insight I gained out of my media diary, in particular – I was shocked by the magnitude of hours I spend on listening to audio! I spent more time listening to podcasts this week than non-class activities for school (readings, research, and completing assignments).

Looking back, it does make some sense. I put on NPR every morning when I wake up, and whenever I can manage to listen to a podcast, I have one on. I consider listening to podcasts the perfect activity for multitasking when I am not mentally busy, but I can’t use my hands or look at a screen. I listen to podcasts when I am commuting anywhere (i.e. walking to and from class), cleaning, cooking, running, and getting ready to leave the house. I don’t remember the last time I applied eyeliner without a podcast playing in the background.

Because I listen to so much content this way, I thought I would dig into the kind of audio I am consuming, and I created the chart above. I am listening to more news and politics than anything else. I don’t think this is a bad thing, since it is the most realistic way that I will listen to more long-form journalism. I spent a few hours reading long articles through my Pocket suggestions and my print subscription of the New Yorker, but other than that and audio, I mostly get my news through my Twitter feed.

The problem I see from the chart is that I only listened to three audio sources in the news and politics category in the past week, and all of them are distributed by NPR. A big takeaway is that I need to work on diversifying the types of podcasts and audio I listen to for the news.

Please comment below with your favorite podcasts, news or otherwise!

1 thought on “Lauren’s Media Diary

  1. I listen to Intercepted, Whose Century Is It?, Vox’s The Weeds, Global Politico, and Sinica (contemporary China).

Comments are closed.