The Appeal of Narrative and Citizen Sharing

Before narratives are born, they are conceived as newswire messages, investigative reports, scientific reports, and now tweets. Historically, these messages were transformed into popular narratives by the editors of the oligarchy of media organizations who chose the stories that they deemed the most important or the most entertaining. Some abused their power and chose stories based on their personal biases, but in a competitive marketplace that values truth, the most honest news media organizations would win out. The bottom line depended on the selling of newspapers which depended on the featured headlines on the front page. What has always largely determined the appeal of a narrative is how well it sells.

The difference today is that people can spread the news themselves by posting status updates and sharing news by the article instead of the paper. Appealing narratives can be derived from what is worth sharing instead of what will be sold. The editors no longer have to judge if a particular story is interesting to the public, as a significant sample size of the public can share it by itself and the editors can then highlight that story for the rest of the public. The pre-digital editors job was to tap into the pulse of the public by measuring sales, but now they can tap directly into the blood stream by monitoring click-through rates and the sharing of articles.

Have we seen a complete overhaul in what narratives become popular? Largely no. It is the same reporting on "things that are shocking" like international war that we have seen before, but now the focus can be shifted to the places that might have been overlooked in the past. When there were protests in Iran in June 2009, the New York Times and CNN, didn't cover the start of the protests. Only after reports of the protests took the Internet by storm, major news organizations started to cover the events. The audience now has more control than ever as to what gets covered and becomes a narrative, but the appeal is the same. There is no true definition of what is newsworthy, but it usually comes down to a few things; the shocking, the inspirational, and the relevant to ones' life. And ultimately, what would you want a friend to know?