Media Mindfulness

A case study in how viral media spread. This is from sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling’s blog at Wired.com. It’s an account of the infamous “Macaca” comment by Senate candidate (and now loser) George Allen:

Beyond the Beyond:

According to Vanden Berg, they chose to post the video on YouTube because it was free (simple enough). But before they tossed it out for the public to see, they’d already pitched the story to a Washington Post reporter, who wrote about it online on Monday. Only after the Post story appeared and the issue had been properly framed did the Webb folks send an email to their supporter list and to friendly bloggers.

The fact that the video was on YouTube made it particularly easy to distribute, since bloggers could insert it directly into their pages, but it was the campaign’s promotional work that spread the word.

And as the story developed, they constantly worked reporters and bloggers behind the scenes to shape the public discussion.

The video had its REALLY significant effects when the mainstream media picked it up and showed it over and over — 400,000 people many have seen it online, but millions saw it on television. Webb’s people also had help from their opponent: Vanden Berg attributed much of the issue’s long shelf life to the Allen campaign’s very poor response — bad damage control killed them.

Technorati Tags: macaca, ViralMedia