Shareable Media

Shareable media is something which makes journalism very difficult. The reason being, is because it blurs the lines between what is journalism and what is popular culture.

One of the key players in the “shareable media” is the website, Buzzfeed. They have several “click-bait” posts which include topics which maybe interesting to the specific reader which they are targeting.

The picture above shows some of the top articles on Buzzfeed right now. These clearly are not articles about anything news-related. Which leads to the question of: Is this really journalism or is this just social media marketing?

The two articles seemed to be geared towards specifically interested people, which really calls into question if this is journalism. Especially when some of the articles they post are sponsored.

Shareable media does have a specific audience in mind when it is publish. For example my photography page:

The reason why these are considered shareable media, is because they are targeting a specific audience. The photography is targeting meteorologists and people who enjoy looking at pictures of the night sky. Shareable media also refers to journalism as well, but for the most part, journalism seems to be a small part of shareable media.

This is what a major news company’s website looks like, but how many times will CNN’s links be shared compared to the Buzzfeed posts? My guess is, not nearly as many because Buzzfeed targets specific audiences on Facebook and also on twitter which will generate more page views. Now the question I ask you is; which would you share, an article you find interesting, or a news story?