Hani Hasani, Gjorgji Shemov, Alena Mikhalkovich, & Reine Defranco
Presentation Evaluation + Links and Slides
Pre-internet virality
First Viral Videos
First Internet Meme
Virality Study
–Kevin Allocca – Why Videos Go Viral
– Vice: Fake Top-Rated Tripadvisor Restaurant
– Video
Analytics
– Hoaxy
Fake News Links
– Snopes
When our group first decided on virality for a presentation, we understood one of the central challenges would be covering a critical part of communication across history and a vast number of digital platforms. With our limited time available, we chose to touch on a variety of different components to virality to leave the class with more resources and questions to ask on the nature of virality.
We outlined the central aspects of virality to research, beginning with the psychology and theory behind virality (including its name attachment to biological virality), then progressing on to a few historical examples of virality, leading into class activities, modern day virality theory, and fake news.
Part of the interest behind virality was discovering the methods used to cause something to go viral, especially on modern platforms. Studying the theories of group triggering, Novelty Search, and Information Gap Theory was included to help supplement the discussions we hoped to have in class regarding how virality occurs so prevalently in modern platforms.
Looking back on the presentation, we were all excited about the level of class engagement throughout the presentation. Through the longer periods of slides, the questions and class activities managed to break up the longer segments of explanations.
The more disruptive points in the presentation included the technical glitches of clicking links and also going a few minutes overtime to finish the presentation. Looking back, we wish we had invested more time in a conclusion that could bring all elements of virality together. The presentation could have been boosted with a central takeaway for the class that could provide a synopsis between the virality theory, psychology, historical and present day examples, and fake news points.
We asked a few classmates for comments about the presentation and overall got largely positive feedback for the information discussed and the subsequent class discussions. The activities were great inclusions, and we wish we could have included more time for discussion in the last Google trends activity. Perhaps a more fluid integration of virality theory into the class discussions would have also been effective, versus jumping back and forth between the two sections.