NPR One

I couldn’t remember the last time I listened to public radio, before starting this assignment. It was really interesting because this was a completely new experience for me. When I first opened the app it immediately selected Michigan Radio as my local station, which I thought was a very cool feature since the personalization has already begun. The first couple stories were most focused on current events and politics, which I mainly skipped through after listening to the beginnings of them. A program about women’s reactions to the whole Ray Rice and NFL scandal played, and when I clicked it as interesting, another similar one played soon after.

        

This was really cool, because the NPR app had remembered my interests and tried to link me to more stories they thought I would like. This was probably the best personalization example that the NPR app did for me throughout my whole listening period.

I also took advantage of the “Search” function in order to find more programs I would be interested in. When I searched “television” I was connected to a story about some new Fall TV shows.

I actually really enjoyed this story because not only did it give me background and some context, it also played snippets of the premieres, which really got my attention. At the end of the story, I also found out the speaker’s identity and his website about TV reviews.

Overall, I did enjoy this listening experience but it’s not to say that I had no qualms. I personally felt that the personalization of this app could have been stronger, as I kept getting stories about politics or other current events that I had skipped through. I probably skipped through over twenty news stories, and yet NPR One still played them more often than the ones I was interested in. However, this could also be seen as a positive aspect of the app too, in that it’s trying to keep the users informed about the news.

Introduction

Hi I’m Alice Choi and I’m a junior majoring in Communication Studies. I love watching TV whether it’s online or via cable. When I’m watching online, it’s mainly binge-watching Netflix for hours at a time, keeping up with the same show. On the other hand with TV via cable, it’s mostly brainless watching in order to pass time.

However I almost never watch news on TV. The snippets of the news I do get is from Facebook or Buzzfeed, and both are unintentional. I’ll be going through my newsfeed when I see a link to an article or video about a current event. Similarly with Buzzfeed, I’ll be looking at food articles when I see another article on the side bar. I would say that my habits have changed in the past few years, because when I was younger I didn’t read about any news ever. I only became aware of current events when they became so well-known that it was all anyone talked about. Furthermore, with the increasing use of social media, I am learning every day from little snippets my friends share. In the past, I didn’t have this opportunity.

My parents get their news from the newspaper and on TV. They get a newspaper every day, and spend their lunch time reading. When they get home from work, my dad loves to turn on the news and watch it after dinner. This is very different from me because I rarely read newspaper articles or watch the news on TV. I think this is not only due to the changing times with technology, but also because of the convenience. The newspaper gets dropped off every morning. They simply need to turn on the TV to the correct channel. With online articles, it requires a little more work and searching than my parents desire.