Erick Valle
4/2/19
Prof Graves
ENG 2150
The Draft from Hell
(Intro)
In social media, there are countless videos, pictures, and persons that go viral. With millions of users on social media platforms, there is a high number of users consuming a high number of images; the reason as to how something goes viral is a primitive and seemingly simple answer. The way how something goes viral is correlated to the emotional feelings that are felt while consuming the subject and if it follows a sociological contagion theory. The theory suggests, that a group’s inclination towards an image or idea creates a collective contagion, sounds a little familiar? That same collective contagion is what is known as virality. There is research that backs up my claim, such as a sociological book that covers the contagion theory, articles that mention on how emotions are present while consuming an item, and journals that take a closer look at the 2016 presidential election. Examples of emotions and symbols being a factor in virality are the Soviet Union’s programming/propaganda and the 2016 presidential election’s participation on Twitter, the subject of the election is one of high tension and emotion already since it has to do with American politics so there will be existing rhetorics that are in direct opposition with each other along with images such as the infamous red “Make America Great Again” hat. There will also be an analysis of the changing of the rhetoric of an image, related to the points made by my bibliography; for example Kanye West’s knack of changing controversial symbols to meet his definition and message.
(Body)
In this body paragraph, I would primarily talk about the research that supports the contagion theory. Which is a sociological theory that suggests that the metaphors of contagion are always present in our society, and influence our behavior towards making something viral. According to “Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks.” “Virality presents, as such, an abstract diagram of contagion that considers how social singularities are assembled in relation to each other in the grip of discursive semiotic regimes (e.g., the metaphor of contagion) but also includes presocial affective processes of contagion.” This quote supports the model of the contagion theory obviously, but points at a more concrete point; that the process of contagion involves a presocial affective, like emotions; the effect that emotions have on contagion. These emotions could create things such as biases and can overpower a free-thinking man, the author specifically refers to this in the second chapter, “This chapter begins with the premise that what spreads through a social network is all too often attributed to two largely uncontested logics of resemblance and repetition. First, cultural contagion is assumed to correspond to a distinctive biologically determined unit of imitation. This is unquestionably a mechanistic virality analogically compared to the canonical imprint of genetic code. Second, what spreads is said to occur in a representational space of collective contamination in which individual persons who become part of a crowd tend toward thinking in the same mental images (real and imagined). Like this, the reasoned individual is seemingly overpowered by a neurotic mental state of unity unique to the crowd, which renders subjectivity vulnerable to further symbolic contagious encounters and entrainments.” This bias created by the contagion theory is very reminiscent of politics in society. The leaders or candidates are dependent on emotional reactions evoked by images upon a subconscious crowd that makes way for their ideas to be expressed and followed, it is a clear play on the method of gaining virality, the propaganda that a society consumes are the images that are part of a collective contamination; the idea. People would use this method of virality in the marketing field however, this text looks at virality in a not so frivolous way; in this case it is for more than a livelihood but for social dominance; in chapter 5 of the text Sampson states “But given recent events in the Middle East, we see how it also relates to widespread outbreaks of anger, disaffection, political violence, and revolution. Indeed, these events are a timely reminder of how sudden shocks to a social system can develop into a spontaneous epidemic, which, on very rare occasions, overwhelms firmly entrenched power institutions. There are, of course, parallels here to Le Bon’s concerns with the threat revolutionary contagion posed to nineteenth-century aristocratic orders in Europe. Le Bon understood democratic crowd contagion to be guided by a dangerous unified mental inclination toward images that could subordinate freewill, pervert truth, and provoke revolutionary acts of violence. It was in fact the mass hallucination of such images through the unconscious crowd that became the mechanism of Le Bon’s hypnotic contagion.” The mass hallucinations that Lebon refers to is synonymous to the radicalization of an idea if we are to look at a historical example an easy one to mention would be the Soviet Union. In its inception, the tensions were high between the proletariat and the owner, so when a guy like Lenin came along with speeches that would stoke those emotions, the reactions would be spontaneous, resulting in war. And as previously mentioned in the quote, it ended up overwhelming a firmly placed power. Propaganda during the communist government reign was very oriented in unifying everyone through their own tailored rhetoric, it was a perversion of truth; the truth of equality within humans. But since the images were produced on a mass scale, not to mention ones that came directly from the government, it created a mass hallucination. An artist by the name of Alex Rodchenko produced art during the time, one his pieces being titled “Books Please!” is a piece that was very oriented around the Russian propaganda at the time, it illustrates a woman who looks to be dressed in a headband and presumably workers clothes shouting a call that I would assume is a call to be educated, which was one of the ideas proposed in communism, education for all. This example shows how the unified mental inclination of the group furthered the symbolic contagion of the idea. In layman’s terms, it means that symbols breed similar symbols that have the same effect.
Now that I’ve already set the theoretical in place, it is time to support and synthesize that with the sources that mainly talk about Donald Trump and the election got so viral. The uses of the symbolic contagion is ever present in today’s society as it was back half a decade ago. There is another factor that plays into the uses of these symbols, and that is the time we take to process the information that we are given. That is why most propaganda items are posters or slogans, they are short, sweet, and straight to the point. The short amount of time taken to process an item can contribute to the items shock value, leading to an emotional response. This ease of processing information isn’t restricted to just paper or words but has developed even further and faster since the introduction of political leaders using social media to get across their thoughts. A prime example of this is Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential elections. Donald Trump during that time was a highly controversial figure that says very outlandish things. The sheer shock value of the statements strikes dissent from his opposing party, the Democratic party, or strikes a “blunt truth” that conservatives might agree with. According to the NY Times article “Donald Trump’s Unstoppable Virality” by Emma Roller, “Virality can be about sheer news value, but emotion also plays a big role in determining what gets shared. If we think about a given news story as a disease waiting to be passed along, human emotion is its most common vector. And some emotions are more contagious.” To add on, Roller states that “So when Mr. Trump says that Mexicans are rapists and killers, or that the government should register Muslims in the United States in a mandatory database system, people hit the share button. And as long as stories about Mr. Trump are receiving as many eyeballs as possible, it doesn’t really matter if people are reacting negatively to him. In fact, it probably helps his popularity.” This supports my point that regardless of the reaction towards the outlandish material, he is reaching a point of virality that inflates his presence as a candidate. Another thing that contributes to his virality is the scope or medium that he uses. He primarily tweets out his thoughts and plans towards his followers, and it is where a library of Trump’s outlandish statements are found. According to “The Popularity and Virality of Political Social Media: Hashtags, Mentions, and Links Predict Likes and Retweets of 2016 U.S. Presidential Nominees’ Tweets.” “Mentions (e.g. @realDonaldTrump) include other users in their content, allowing them to quickly join the conversation and be recognized by viewers. Users that are mentioned in posts receive a notification when they log onto the site that someone has tagged them in a post. Mentions are made by placing the (@) symbol in front of an alphanumeric string. Users can even embed links (URLs) to external websites in their post (e.g. www.hrc.io/studentdebt). All of these Twitter tag and link tools are designed to facilitate content diffusion to reach a broad audience in a crowded social media landscape.” So these actions on twitter are a scope as to which a broader audience could be reached and possibly convinced. Additionally, the author of the article adds “’the important point is that fluency at large arises from many different sources rather than which particular cognitive process drives any one particular fluency experience’ (Alter & Oppenheimer, [ 2], p. 233). We predict that only tools that facilitate message processing fluency, like embedding photos or video in a tweet, should increase social media interactions.” Connecting the two sources, it is clear that the symbolism; tweets, that Trump puts out are controversial in itself, prompting an emotion or reaction that’ll either have your support, disagreement, or indifference. Either way, the individuals that support his statements are part of collective contamination that is Trump’s tweet.
Back on the New York Times article that covers Trump, the author adds ““Richard L. Rapson, a professor of psychological history at the University of Hawaii, has studied virality through the lens of emotional contagion. He found that the most shareable moments come when a story lights up the deepest recesses of our minds. “Hate, fear of the other, anger — they come directly from the nonconscious, and that’s why they’re so easy to evoke,” Professor Rapson said.” Emotions are the main driving force of the contagion theory, while an image is used to portray an idea, it’s the inside reaction caused by emotions that really drives the reason for virality. There is an article that supports and delves into the reason that emotions contribute to the appeal of something. According to Nikolinakou, Angeliki, and Karen Whitehill King. “Viral Video Ads: Emotional Triggers and Social Media Virality.” “They can be defined as impulses, mental actions, or predispositions that represent “states of readiness” to react to a situation or a stimulus in ways that serve one’s needs (Frijda, 1986). Happiness creates action tendencies to celebrate which further enhance sense of well‐being, while sadness prompts withdrawal of one’s self in order to reevaluate the situation and develop a new course of action toward one’s goals (Lazarus, 1991).” According to the article, awe and affection is a strong emotion to play off of. “Psychology studies suggest that experiencing affection and awe may make an individual more emotionally open and receptive to others (e.g. Batson, 2005). This study supports this finding and indicates that in the context of viral advertising, affection experienced via ads strongly elicits intentions to share in order to achieve emotional connection and offer emotional support in social media. The results indicate that awe may also have similar effects. By shifting attention from the self toward others, awe may prompt expressions of emotional connection and emotional generosity in social media.”