Media-diary represents your day by day communication with the media.
I suggest not only thinking about the media but also about the internet on the whole.
By the way, it can be a reason to think about features of the media and the internet which seem to be meaningful to you.It is comparable to a food-diary because you need to document everything you're doing on the internet (you can do it during the day or in the evening using your browser history).
If you practice for several days, you'll get the whole picture of your regular actions. So you could notice some patterns and realize what being an internet user means to you, rather easily.
Where did it come from?Media-diaries are used in applied and academic research. By using it, marketers and anthropologists analyze the news consumption system. It helps to understand the way people discuss important topics, the way we choose products online. It's important for researchers not only to find out how people read a news page, but also how they understand the information.
With whom will they discuss it? Will they double-check the news?
Media managers create their product development strategy based on this information. Their goal is to make the news less annoying and more useful.
Why a common internet user needs the media-diary?You have to decide what exactly you want to learn, so that your media-diary can be of use for you.
If you want to find out what spoils your mood, try to document your own feelings. If you want to take care of your social life, pay attention to who you communicate with and how you do it. If you're worried about time, keep a diary hourly or mix the description of subjective time with self-tracking (don't replace one with another!).
Sometimes there is no general question at all. You're just interested and it's not bad. Then you have to observe yourself properly and capture everything, even if something doesn't meet your expectations about yourself. It is possible to find some interesting research questions studying these two images of yourself: images based on what you want to be and what you really are.
How to work with a media-diary You can start with making your own online life scheme. What services are important in your life? Where and when do you use them? Which ones are really necessary for you and why? Working on such common questions you can extend the scheme and focus on the major topic.
For example, this topic can be time spent on social media or reading news (or finding out which resources you can really trust).
As you've found a suitable topic, start collecting and organizing the information. You can make a description of the day or a list of actions you take as a user. Think, which part of your life would be appropriate to start with.
You can always add more information that will show up in the process.
One more way to keep a media-diary is similar to journaling. Here we describe ourselves reflectively (on paper or using devices); we pay attention to those practices that happen to us online. This kind of diary can be also specific or general – for example, an attempt to re-create yourself as an internet user.
It's reasonable to arrange some kind of scheme or table. Sometimes, it can be better to record an audio message so you could comment on what you think about when scrolling through the news feed. Then you can re-listen to the recording and organize it properly.
Please remember: even if you only get statistics about time and actions on the Internet, you can always complement it by your own reflection. After all, the numbers and your view on these numbers can change during the day. 40 minutes spent on Instagram is more than "just looking at pictures". It can be some kind of relaxation, it can be your work or even gazing at something very important.
Am I analyzing myself keeping this diary? This diary work is good preparation for keeping an observation diary, as anthropologists do.
When it's positioned within the realm of autoethnography, it can work as an independent method. By autoethnography we mean studies in which the author examines his own habits and practices through introspection and studies principles of his own thinking.
Our advice is to do a little autoethnographic work before changing your field study.
Perhaps during the work you'll come to the conclusion that you're not even interested in the Internet itself. It's not bad at all because the Internet is often a symbol, an outer part of our questions. And such questions turn out to be related to different infrastructures and lifestyles.
Presenting your Media Diary
We'll make a collective wallpaper (like school ones). So each one makes their own diary as a scheme or picture or any other form. I encourage you to use A4 format, as each one will fit the others and co-create a collective one.
Some examples are here.