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In this article, Jonah Berger explains "what makes things go viral," essentially what common themes tie things together when being virally shared. Berger expresses that there is a science behind why content go viral- for example, he says that virality can depend on the medium of how it's shared and it's level of sharability (ex. Facebook or Twitter). Also, Berger notes that another reason why content goes viral is because individuals want to appear more intelligent by sharing certain links that make them look better. Berger also explains that viral content has a related theme of "triggers," meaning it appeals to our stimuli in the form of sight and sound.

This article explains how although it is not always possible to predict if content will go viral, there are some similarities between content that has gone viral in the past. For example, Walter explains that viral content shares common features like addressing real-world problems, by evoking emotion (such as anger or humour), and usually has an element of surprise. Walter also adds that how material is distributed and by whom (ex. if celebrities are endorsing it) often plays a key role in whether it will reach a level of virality.

The expansion of Kopimism, a religion formed from the recognition of file sharing as a virtue. There is an extreme adoration for the greatness of file sharing and many people have changed their lives to dedicate themselves to the idea of free flowing information online.

This article analyzes the idea of how virality can be influenced by the emotions felt by the audience. For example, the article explains how people who feel emotions such as happiness as result of viewing certain content are more likely to share it with their friends and networks, therefore contributing to it going viral. The article also uses data collected from Fowler and Christakis' study in 2008 which monitored the emotions people experienced when sharing things on Twitter.

This article discusses the pros and cons of the current lifestyle we live in a social-mediated world. People are learning new ways to "speak" with shorter-slanged words, and more concisely; and even using photos to communicate with others (through photo sharing platforms). Users are also over sharing their private lives with the world on social platforms, not realizing that almost anyone can see and read what they are putting out there.

This article puts Twitter and education together and demonstrates that both can be connected to create a much more valuable and rich educational experience. The teacher in this article used Twitter to strengthen students' current knowledge as well as build a growing library of material for future lessons.

This piece describes how genre is effective in reading and other forms of rhetoric. It can allow readers to get deeper into text, and understand the form of communication on paper. Similarly to genres in movies and TV, genre in written works allow a reader to get the sense of what is "going on". Reading more and more, a reader is able to understand and decipher which genre is which. They also enable readers to connect emotionally to a text, and experience feelings of the writer/characters.

This compilation of articles show how social media can be used to create awareness on current events and in turn can push for a change for the world to improve. The various articles are based in Europe and how movements were successful or on the way to reach their goal(s).

This short article takes a critical look at the different types of social media platforms. The author has an interesting take on how social media has evolved over the past years saying that: "Within the last seven years, we have been through three waves of social domination: The publishing wave (with blogs), the sharing wave (with Facebook and Twitter), and the curating wave (with Quora, Pinterest and alike)." The author goes on to place further importance on the type of content users post and how that impacts the evolution of social platforms. Towards the end he also touches on the choosing the right social media for different types of business.

Last week Professor McMaster touched on online ecosystems. If you want to know more about it, this Forbes article clearly describes what a social media ecosystem is. The key image depicts the social media landscape in very compact and useful way. It shows all the different ways users interact with their devices.

Similar to the example given in class early in the semester about the young boy who asked for donations because of a disorder he had, this article also involves Reddit and users donating money to help those in need. The article is an example of concept of imagined communities. It features that idea of people from all over the world being unified because they read something on the same website and thus sharing an experience together by helping the orphanage.

This article provides different examples as to how social media has made an impact on various social movements that have happened; big and small ones. The article highlights the usage of social media and how it enables people to rally together from different parts of the world to share their opinion on a cause/campaign.

This webpage relates to our earlier discussion about genre theory which depicted some forms of media are more prone to fit into a particular genre label.  More so this page outlines the main types of genres in film which could be helpful for the media episodes project, in order to help identify an appropriate audience and content per the given episode content.  

This short article describes the social media efforts employed by the Occupy movement. It also includes links to some of these social media pages to further arouse the interest by the reader.