Viral news is defined as networked news stories that spread online mostly through social media in a much faster and wider manner than other news stories, and this study investigates the elements that make news viral on two social media platforms. The goal is to fill a gap in the literature on viral news especially on social media news as previous communication studies mostly focused on news sharing habits on the news organizations’ websites as well as editors’ news selection criteria. The top 50 news stories are selected for this study by examining the most viewed videos on the Guardian, the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal’s YouTube channels as well as their most retweeted news stories. The study introduces a mixed model to examine viral news, borrowing from previous studies on emotions and others that focused on news worthiness. The results indicate that social media news readers prefer to read and share overwhelmingly positive news, while social significance and unexpectedness in news stories are the most appealing viral news elements.

This study analyzes mainstream media (MSM) coverage of fake news discourse and compares it with social networking sites (SNS) users who reference the term “fakenews” in their tweets. The study employs computational methods by analyzing over 8 million tweets and 1,350 news stories using topic modeling. Building on the theory of (networked) gatekeeping and Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, the results show that SNS users follow networked gatekeeping practices by mostly associating fake news references to the alleged bias of MSM. On the other hand, MSM coverage tends to link fake news to SNS’s negative role in spreading misinformation. I argue here that there is a networked flak activity on Twitter which is defined as a collective negative response to MSM in order to discipline it, change its tone and editorial stance, or undermine the public’s trust in it.

By being embedded in everyday life, social networking sites (SNSs) have altered the way campaign politics are understood and engaged with by politicians and citizens alike. However, the actual content of social media has remained a vast but somewhat amorphous and understudied entity. The study reported here examines public sentiment as it was expressed in just over 1.42 million social media units on Facebook and Twitter to provide broad insights into dominant topics and themes that were prevalent in the 2012 U.S. election campaign online. Key findings include the fact that contrary to what one might expect, neither presidential candidate was framed in an overly critical manner in his opponent’s Facebook space nor on Twitter’s dedicated nonpartisan election page. Beyond this, similarities and divergences in sentiment across social media spaces are observed that allow for a better understanding of what is being communicated in political social media.

This study discusses different media strategies followed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In particular, the study attempts to understand the way ISIS’s video game that is called “Salil al-Sawarem” (The Clanging of the Swords) has been received by the online Arab public. The article argues that the goal behind making and releasing the video game was to gain publicity and attract attention to the group, and the general target was young people. The main technique used by ISIS is what I call “troll, flame, and engage.” The results indicate that the majority of comments are against ISIS and its game, though most of the top ten videos are favorable towards the group. The sectarian dimension between Sunnis and Shiites is highly emphasized in the online exchanges, and YouTube remains an active social networking site that is used by ISIS followers and sympathizers to promote the group and recruit others.

Political Memes and Fake News Discourses on Instagram