MY CPMS 225 professor taught me that the mass media, in its pluralized form, referto “the organized means of communicating openly, at a distance, and to many in a short space of time.”[1]
The earliest form of “mass media” was the humble book. Then came the (revolutionary) newspaper, which was more accessible and less expensive than books; then radio—a hands-free form of media—and television.
These forms of older media all have one thing in common: they limit who can be the producers of news. With books, with newspaper, with radio and tv, there were a select few who produced and distributed information and a larger pool of people who consumed it.
Now, in the age of digital media, anyone can do it all.
New media allows all people to voice their opinions and share them with the world. Some of those opinions become more popular than others: with the advent of platforms like Facebook and Twitter has come the concept of “going viral’—that is, content that spreads quickly across the internet in the same rapid, exponential way a virus might infect your body.
Distracted boyfriend. Blinking white guy. Baby Yoda memes. all of these are examples of content that has spread virally across the internet, for some reason or another.
So why is it that some media goes viral, while other pieces remain hidden in the web’s corners?
Well, according to research done by Ahmed Al-Rawi, it can be hard to tell.[2]
However, it may have something to do with what I’ve come to call “viral news values”—those qualities that make bites of information more shareable.
It seems that one of the elements of virality is practical information utility.[3]Content that many people find useful (i.e., so-called “lifehacks”) is often shared and reshared quickly.
Content relevancy also feeds into virality, Al-Rawi says[4]— you’re more likely to share things that are in line with your lifestyle and value system
Pathos plays a large role, as well. In a 2007 study, researcher Angela Dobele and her compatriots found that virality is often linked to strong emotions, like anger, fear, disgust, surprise, joy and sadness.[5]Interestingly, they found that media invoking disgust was more likely to be shared by males.[6]
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AT THIS POINT, you might be asking yourself what “going viral” has to do with the news—after all, memes and tweets have little to do with information and more to do with entertainment, right?
Well, as it turns out, social media has become an incredibly important tool for journalists, too.
For example, In February 2012, Facebook directed more traffic to the Guardian’s website than organic searches from search engines like Google.[7]
While social media is often regarded as useful in the news industry, Al-Rawi says, some communications scholars warn that obsessing over analytics that track reader clicks might pressure news outlets into tailoring stories to fit what they think their audience wants to see.[8]
In other words, the more news outlets use social media analysis to learn what their readers enjoy seeing, the more those outlets might be tempted to publish stories they think viewers want to read. Journalism’s first obligation is to inform the public of what they need to know—not what they want to hear—and social media could potentially threaten that agenda.
So what, exactly, do we “want to know?” What does the data say we’re sharing?
Much to my surprise, Al-Rawi’s study found that social media news readers prefer to read and share overwhelmingly positive news, while social significance and unexpectedness in news stories are the most appealing viral news elements.[9]
But feel-good news and funny memes aside, virality definitely has a more sinister side.
I’m talking about fake news, which researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found spreads more quickly on Twitter than actual news—and not because of bots. No, it’s humans giving false pieces the shares.[10]
In a 2019 article, scholar and religious figure Mark Beach said Twitter, Facebook and similar social platforms have become “cafeteria food fights where truth is buried beneath alternate realities, distortion, racist commentary, and, more simply put, lies and bullying.”[11]
There could be world-wide implications attached to false news going viral on socials: there has been much discussion about whether or not viral fake news created by foreign bots skewed the United States’ 2016 presidential election.
Some now ask whether it will be possible for elections to ever be “fair” again, since social media has accelerated globalization in a way no other media ever did before.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's post....more to come.
- SJ
[1]Burns, Alison. “The Rise of Mass Media.” Powerpoint presented at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, September 3, 2019
[2]Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "Viral News on Social Media." Digital Journalism 7, no. 1 (2019): 63-79. doi:10.1080/21670811.2017.1387062.
[3]Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "Viral News on Social Media." Digital Journalism 7, no. 1 (2019): 63-79. doi:10.1080/21670811.2017.1387062.
[4]Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "Viral News on Social Media." Digital Journalism 7, no. 1 (2019): 63-79. doi:10.1080/21670811.2017.1387062.
[5]Dobele, Angela, Adam Lindgreen, Michael Beverland, Joëlle Vanhamme, and Robert Van Wijk. "Why Pass on Viral Messages? Because They Connect Emotionally." Business Horizons 50, no. 4 (2007): 291-304. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2007.01.004.
[6]Dobele, Angela, Adam Lindgreen, Michael Beverland, Joëlle Vanhamme, and Robert Van Wijk. "Why Pass on Viral Messages? Because They Connect Emotionally." Business Horizons 50, no. 4 (2007): 291-304. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2007.01.004.
[7]Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "Viral News on Social Media." Digital Journalism 7, no. 1 (2019): 63-79. doi:10.1080/21670811.2017.1387062.
[8]Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "Viral News on Social Media." Digital Journalism 7, no. 1 (2019): 63-79. doi:10.1080/21670811.2017.1387062.
[9]Al-Rawi, Ahmed. "Viral News on Social Media." Digital Journalism 7, no. 1 (2019): 63-79. doi:10.1080/21670811.2017.1387062.
[10]Dizikes, Peter. “Study: On Twitter, False News Travels Faster than True Stories.” MIT News. MIT News Office, March 8, 2018. http://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308.
[11]Beach, Mark. “Fake News, Truth, and Trust.” Media Development65, no. 1 (2019): 38–39. http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=f3a344a3-dac9-4b79-b153-f55c335e537c@pdc-v-sessmgr04.
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