Spreadable Media - Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (Broché)

Spreadable media is a rare inside look at today's ever-charging media landscape. The days of corporate control over media content and its distribution have been replaced by the age of what the digital media industries have called "user-generated content". Spreadable Media maps these fundamental changes, and gives readers a comprehensive look into the rise of participatory culture, from intemet menses to presidential tweets.
The authors challenge our notions of what goes "viral" by examining factors such as the nature of audience engagement and the environment of participation, and by contrasting the concepts of "stickiness" with "spreadability." Stickiness—the aggregation of attention in centralized places—has often been the measure of media success in the online world, but spreadability—the dispersal of content widely through both formal and informal networks—describes the actual ways content travels through social media.
The book explores the internal tensions businesses face as they adapt to this new, spreadable media landscape and argues for the need to shift from "hearing" to "listening" in corporate culture. Now with a new afterword addressing changes in the media industry, audience participation, and political reporting, and drawing on contemporary examples from online activism campaigns, film, music, television, advertising, and social media—from both the U.S.
and around the world—the authors illustrate the contours of our current media environment. For all of us who actively create and share content, Spreadable Media provides a dear understanding of how people are spreading ideas and the implications these activities have for business, politics, and everyday life, both on- and offline.