I read an interesting article from The New Yorker's blog "Elements" the other day about how and why viral content becomes, well, viral. What makes this video of a cat falling in a toilet more popular than that meme where Xzibit seems to be saying something funny? Why is a news story on protests in Greece less popular than another news story about protests in Vietnam?
Author Maria Konnikova might say it better when she asks, "What was it about a piece of content—an article, a picture, a video—that took it from simply interesting to interesting and shareable? What pushes someone not only to read a story but to pass it on?"
Essentially, she points to the traditional notions of the rhetorical triangle (logos, pathos, and... what's that other one?) and our tendency as language users (visual, textual, etc.) to lean towards one point of the triangle or another.
Aristotle used the rhetorical triangle as a means for creating information delivery devices that were not only persuasive, but also memorable (and thus able to be passed along by listeners, in his case). Konnikova refers to the "presence of a memory-inducing trigger" for viral content, and for example refers to her article about the popularity narratives containing lists. It's just one link to the traditional rhetorical triangle, but it's a meaningful one.
Based on the article, what do you think of some of the other connections she describes?
No comments:
Post a Comment