Redefining virality in less broad strokes: Predicting viral behavioral intentions from motivations and uses of Facebook and Twitter

Abstract

With the growing sophistication of social media, virality of online content has become an indicator of online message effectiveness. We argue for a comprehensive definition that extends virality to social networking and microblogging sites, by emphasizing users’ behaviors beyond shear access and viewership. Across two studies, we investigate viral behavioral intentions (VBIs) toward pro-social messages shared on Facebook and Twitter. We further explore how motivations and uses of Facebook and Twitter predict VBIs toward messages shared on these websites.

Intelligent Parallel Mixed Method Approach for Characterising Viral YouTube Videos in Saudi Arabia

“…According to [9], examinations and definitions of virality can be categorised in three ways. The first seeks to examine how the content is accessed, disseminated, and propagated over a short time period.…”

“…Previous research on virality has primarily been drawn from five different fields: psychology (e.g., [9]; [11]; [12]; [13]; [4]), computer science (e.g., [14]; [15]; [16]; [1]; [10]; [17]; [18]; [19]; [20]; [21]; [22]), political science (e.g., [2]; [23]; [24]), marketing (e.g., [25]; [26]; [27]; [28]; [29]; [30]; [31]; [7]; [32]; [33]), and health (e.g., [34]). These studies have been mainly conducted in Western countries, such as the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Australia.…”

Viral journalism: The rise of a new form

“…With the rise and the popularisation of media technologies, media scholars have indicated the struggle for new journalism interpretation (Domingo et al, 2014;Jenkins et al, 2013;Hermida, 2010;Alhabash et al, 2014). As Domingo et al (2014) argue in their paper "Tracing digital news networks" say that, as media scholars, our most pressing challenge is to provide comprehensive analy-sis of the current dynamics of news production, circulation and use in the digital public sphere, because journalism studies struggle to capture the diversity of actors, discourses and relationships, and evaluate their implications for the future of professional news production and the quality of public communication (Domingo et al, 2014: 1).…”

“…As of the second quarter of 2016, Facebook had 1.71 billion monthly active users (Statista, 2016a), and Twitter had 313 million monthly active users (Statista, 2016b). Social media have redefi ned the way we communicate and interact with products, brands, and social and political issues (Alhabash et al, 2014(Alhabash et al, : 1317. Because of the acceleration of the communication, personalisation and one-to-one communication, we cannot perceive communication as a massive one, but rather as highly individualised.…”

“…The term viral fi rst appeared in science fi ction stories, describing (generally bad) ideas that spread like germs (Jenkins et al, 2013: 17). Talking about new emerging technological and informational trends, Saleem Alhabash and Anna R. McAlister (2014) in their work argue that with the growing sophistication of social media, virality of online content has become an indicator of online message effectiveness (McAlister et al, 2014(McAlister et al, : 1317. Furthermore, by defi ning virality, they mention that the term virality has become the industry buzzword for online success: in that context, media content that gains signifi cant attention in terms of viewership, comments, shares or likes is the one that has become viral, and the one that reaches a greater audience (McAlister et al, 2014(McAlister et al, : 1318.…”