Viral Media and Social Media Marketing

From Viral Media to Spreadable Media

 

Social networks evolve every day and become more and more advanced. People share media content on a daily content and millions of new videos are being uploaded and speard every day. This blog post is concerned with the dynamics of a viral post, how media content becomes viral and what the concept of spreadibility has to do with it. Therefore I will take a video by the Youtube channel luckyTV which is a caricature of the second american presidential debate in 2016.

According to Douglas Rushkoff (1994), human kind is dependent on social networks and information has become the centre of importace in our society. As there is hardly anything left to explore on our planet, the online space offers a new way of expanding our civilisation. He states that this space, to us, is just as real as physical space was 500 years ago (Rushkoff, 1994, p. 4). Rushkoff compares media content with biological viruses. As media ‘travels’ through the networks, it ‘infects’ the networks and spreads through the whole system. Those media viruses are being spread through the users sharing the video, image or text. He distingushes between three different kinds of viruses:

The first can be considered to be a publicity stunt or an activist prank (p. 10). This type of virus is being launched intentionally and has been created to serve a certian purpose. Products or ideologies are usually promotes through this kind of virus.

The second Rushkoff calls “”bandwagon” viruses”. Unlike the publicity stunt, this kind of virus is not always created for a particular reason, however, the people who spread the content hope to either raise awareness or attract attention to a certian topic they want to promote.

Last but not least, and probably the biggest kind of media virues is the self-generated virus. The content of this type of virus usually addresses a soft spot of the society or entails controversial messages. This sparks the interest of the consumers and therefore riases the people’s interest.

How media viruses spread is very important. Jenkins picks up on this issue and concerns himself with the concept of spreadability and stickiness. They are not opposites, but there are prominent differences in the two concepts. The participation of the society is necessary for both concepts as it determines how media flows. By paticipatory cultre is inderstood a collective group or society that shares the same mind set or is interested in the same kind of media content – a fan community is what Jenkins (2013) calls the traditional way of looking at participatory culture. While spreadability is conerned with reaching as many people as possible, stickiness concentrates on keeping the people on the media content for a longer period of time.

Spreadable media also looks at how likely users are to share certain content. Since it has quantity as a main aspect, the connectivity of the consumers  are taken into account (Jenkins, Ford & Green, 2013, p. 6). Spreadablity also seeks out to make the process of sharing as easy as possible. Stickiness, as I mentioned above, wants people to linger on the content. Through the deeper interaction with the media content, the people get a better understanding of the what is being shown.

Stickiness is considered with quality; people share what they see as valuable to be shared. Posts that are “sticky” are constructed in a way that keeps people on the post, but also takes into account the “mechanisms motivating people to seek out and spend time at a particular site.” (p. 4).

As an example I chose a video by the dutch Youtube channel DWDD

The video was launched on 11.10.2016, shortly after the second presidential debate. The video presents several clips of the debate that have been voice over with Bill Medly & Jennifer Warner’s (I’ve had) The Time of my Life. With over three million views and hardly any dislikes, it is the most sussessful videos of the three that have been released with different voive overs for the same visual video. Also the comments show that it was successful on Youtube, as well as on Facebook.

The video was created by Sander van de Pavert, who also created the website luckytv.nl, on which he posts similar videos of so-called lip syncs. The video was posted on the channel DWDD of the equivalent tv programme De Wereld Draait Door. On websites such as socialblade.com, it can be seen that the subscribtions to the channel rose immensely around the time the video was launched. The success of the video can be traced down to the already controversial and heatedly discussed presidential campaigns in the United States. It lightened the negativity and the commonly noticible dissatisfaction of a big part of the population. It was created at the right time and was created for a reason, but was not spread intentionally, which makes it part of the second kind of media virus. This kind of viral video is also more suited entail the concept of spreadability due to the velocity it was spread and the amount of people it reached.

 

References

dwddtv YouTube Stats, Channel Statistics – Socialblade.com. Socialblade.com. Retrieved from https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/dwddtv. on 08.06.2017

“LuckyTV“. Luckytv.nl. Retrieved from http://www.luckytv.nl/over-lucky/. on 08. 06.2017

„DWDD“. YouTube. Retreived from https://www.youtube.com/user/dwddtv/about. on 08.06.2017

DWDD. (11.10.2016). LuckyTV: Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton “Time of my Life” (Official). [Video File] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Wde1fFvPg

Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Introduction: Why Media Spread. In Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture (pp. 1-46). New York; London: New York University Press. Retrieved from http://nyupress.org/webchapters/jenkins_intro.pdf.

Rushkoff, D. (1994). Introduction (pp. 3 -16). In: Media virus! Hidden agendas in popular culture (1st ed.). New York: Ballantine Books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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