Update Six

In preparation for our feature, I’ve been doing a lot of reading surrounding the hashtag phenomenon. From learning how teenaged One Direction fans are utilising the tool , to rants from the critics, to love letters from the fans, to the most basic of tips – if it’s an #opinion, I’ve read it.

Hashtag Comic by John Hart Studios/http://www.gocomics.com/bc/2013/01/10
Hashtag Comic by John Hart Studios/ http://www.gocomics.com/bc/2013/01/10

I personally use hashtags completely incorrectly, more as a method of commentary than to contribute to any actual conversation (except for my one true weakness – #TheBachelorAU), but it’s fascinating to see how hashtags are used by others to create these dialogues and actual change (or is it just the illusion of change?).

Hashtag Activism Comic by Eric Alive/http://churchm.ag/hashtag-activism/
Hashtag Activism Comic by Eric Alive/ http://churchm.ag/hashtag-activism/

I hope our feature will allow for some real exploration into the trend and it’s journalistic impact, outside of just #throwbackthursday and #selfie #nofilter.

Georgie

Update Five

We’ve finalised our feature idea!

After a few weeks of exploring various aspects of social media and trending, we’ve decided on the topic:  Viral hashtags on social media: Exploring how hashtags are used within the news cycle. Our feature will aim to answer the question “What makes a hashtag go viral and are viral hashtags ‘news’?”

Simultaneous trending hashtags across the world
Simultaneous trending hashtags across the world

By looking at how viral hashtags are created, and then used and spread within the media industry, we want to look at how hashtags are impacting the news cycle. Are they just for fun (like Jimmy Fallon in the below video!), or are they changing how we share news?

This feature will tie into weeks 2, 3, 5, 7 and 13 of the Online Media course.

Georgie

Update Four

As we approach our upcoming feature pitch, we’ve been thinking a lot about the intended audience of our final piece. We’re creating the feature with the intention of it being published in The Guardian’s Tech: In Depth section, and with this in mind, we’ve broken our target audience down into three separate sub-categories:

  • Media Students
  • Existing Media Practitioners
  • Existing Social Media Users
Credit: The Guardian Media Kit/ http://www.theguardian.com/advertising/2014/oct/07/audience
Credit: The Guardian Media Kit/ http://www.theguardian.com/advertising/2014/oct/07/audience

As can be seen in the above infographic, The audience of The Guardian is affluent and well-educated. As such we can understand that those reading our feature from The Guardian website would also fit these demographics. While the average age of Guardian readers is 43, we intend for the target audience of our feature to skew slightly younger, with an emphasis on 18-40 year olds.

We imagine that our audience would wish to engage with our feature for the following reasons:

  • To develop a further understanding of how viral hashtags occur
  • To understand how hashtags function within the news sphere
  • To develop insight into how hashtags are viewed by the public, and whether they should be seen as news
  • To learn how they can use hashtags to participate in the larger media sphere in a meaningful manner.

Georgie

Update Three

Hi!

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about hashtags (or should I say #hashtags?).

Hashtags have become a language all of their own over the past eight years , from their initial conception by Twitter (the below tweet by Chris Messina shows the very first usage) through to today, when every television show, album launch and concert has its own official hashtag that users can follow along and contribute to. Ultimately, hashtags allow for worldwide conversations, while also monitoring which conversations and hashtags are the most popular, on a local and global scale. This can be especially useful for marketing organisations, as it allows them to monitor and prove the popularity of branded hashtags.

Our guest lecture by Ariadne Vromen this week looked at the rise of online political activism. Hashtags are being used with increasing frequency by politicians and those wishing to contribute to the political conversation in an attempt to create change.

We’ll definitely be exploring this issue in more depth in our feature!

Georgie

Update Two

Good morning!

Since my last update, we’ve continued to refine the concept for our final project, and we’ve narrowed down our topic to the concept of trending, whether that be through the Facebook trending bar, trending topics and hashtags on Twitter and Instagram, or websites such as Buzzfeed which are heavily based around the idea of what is currently trending across the world.

FB Trending
The Facebook Trending column, 9AM 21/8/2015

We want to explore the concepts behind how what is trending  are calculated, how celebrity culture influences this, and what it means for the online media space.

This week, we have been learning about the power of search engines, site rankings, and Google. Search Engine rankings are a form of trending within themselves, as the first results on any given search are the most popular results, and therefore the “trending” sites for those search terms. In this week’s Finkelstein reading, however, the concept of popularity vs. authority was raised. He notes that often results reflect an existing hierarchy rather than the most authoritative results. This is interesting to consider in relation to social media, as quite often trending topics and stories are later proven to be false or to contain incorrect information. It just takes a few popular accounts on Twitter using a hashtag to make it trend, and then any form of information can be spread. We plan on looking further into this concept throughout our project.

Georgie

Update One

Hello, MECO3602!

We’re now at the end of week three, and have officially formed our Feature Group. While we’re still brainstorming ideas, we’re all very interested in the impact of social media on journalism, and the role that celebrity plays in this scheme of things. We’re hoping that in the next week we will have finalised our topic, and can move on to choosing a publication and researching more into our target audience. We are anticipating that the story will target a young adult audience, who have an interest in the changing nature of the news cycle.

I personally have a particular interest in the celebrity gossip sphere, and looking at how social media has helped change the way we view gossip, from its former separate space to its current central location in the news cycle. I also have an interest in parasocial interactions, and examining the ways these relationships influence the online sphere.

We haven’t allocated specific roles to group members, as we believe the project will flow more organically as we work out our strengths and interests, and focus on these throughout the course.

Because it’s Friday, here’s a relevant viral video, combining news, celebrity and social media:

Until next week!

Georgie