Media I create

NOTE: Here’s another item I assigned to my Digital Media Literacy students: For a full day this week, keep track of everything you create with digital media tools of all kinds. This means Facebook posts, emails, personal blogs (including Tumblr etc.), Instagram and SnapChat posts, Twitter tweets, texts (including SMS, YikYak, etc.), videos, photos — everything. The best way to keep track of all this may be the old-fashioned method: carry a pen and notebook around for the day and write it all down. Then write a blog post of 300-500 words describing what media you created. Don’t post details you consider private; I’m not interested in the contents of what you posted. What I am interested in, and hope you’ll be as well, is the degree to which you’re creating your own media and how you’re doing it. (Again, I’ll add links later.)

I create a lot of media, though not nearly as much as I “consume” (I hate that word; as I’ve told students in digital media literacy, we should use media, not consume it).

On a given day, here’s roughly how I created media. I’m guessing it’s different from what students do these days. Most of what I create is text. Not all, but most.

In the morning, I answered a batch of email. I do this regularly during the day, because I get a lot and I try to keep up with it. I’ll never get to the fabled “inbox zero” but I’ll try. Occasionally I get and send several text messages, most often with my wife.

I post frequently on Twitter, and more occasionally on Google+. (I almost never use Facebook, for reasons I described in my book Mediactive.) 

Lately, I’ve been posting to This.cm, a wonderful new service that tries to collect–from a bunch of interesting users–just a few items per day that we all believe everyone should see. The site is in beta so I can’t invite all of you to join it, yet.

My blog doesn’t get enough love, though I do post there from time to time. On the day in question I wasted a lot of time responding to someone who was trying to convince me (actually, his own fans) that I’m wrong about net neutrality.

As a longtime photographer I take lots of pictures. I don’t post most of them, but when I do it’s usually to Flickr or Google+ or my blog. I need to do this more. I don’t have an Instagram account but probably should get one.

For an upcoming online project I’ve been doing a bunch of video interviews with folks who have expertise in various media-related issues. This doesn’t happen every day, however.

There’s a way I semi-create media that most of don’t appreciate: individualized media via online services. Example: I wanted driving directions the other day, and used Google Maps. It produced a page of directions and a map. This is media, too–but just for me.

My other media creation, on a regular basis, doesn’t get seen by anyone but me for some period of time: writing I’m doing for my columns at Slate and Medium, as well as a new book. In a way, those are the most traditional forms of media I’ve been making.