Journal #5 Chelsi Chang

My initial answer to this question was no. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I do want some level of spreadability in my posts. When I tweet something funny on Twitter, I want it to be shared or liked. I want people to engage in my posts, to respond to me, to share whatever I posted with their friends. In some ways, these things make us feel validated. I also write for a student publication and they make sure that our stories are shared with others. They ask us to share our stories on a minimum of three social media platforms to ensure that as many eyeballs are seeing our stories, and subsequently, their website as possible. For my online presence, I am way more aware of who is engaging with my posts and possibly retweeting or sharing what I wrote.

However when I write in a journal, I am not at all concerned about whether or not my posts have potential for spreadability. In fact most times the things I write on a physical medium never see the light of day. They are usually ways for me to simply an avenue for me to let out my innermost thoughts and emotions. I am usually also more thoughtful when I put pen to paper. Every word is well thought out before I put it on paper.

I believe my feelings have a lot to do with the medium itself. For some reason, I view physical writing as more serious and important than writing on a computer. Some of it, I believe, comes from the very idea of spreadability. Many times on social media we try to maintain a certain presence whether it be witty, self-deprecating, silly, or philosophical. We put on a show for people online and hope they will retweet or share it so others too can view us through very highly curated lenses. Social media also encourages us spreadbility by placing retweet, share, or like buttons directly under our content. Our ideas online are meant to be shared with everyone, even people we may not know.

Journal #5 Falyn Tover

There are many times when I think about the spreadability of my writing. I love being active on social media and when it comes to Twitter or Facebook and I always think about the quality of my writing and if it has any spreadability. In the Jenkins, Ford, and Green article, it was stated that, "spreadability refers to the potential - both technical and cultural- for audiences to share content for their own purposes, sometimes with the permission of rights holders, sometimes against their wishes."(Pg3)  It was also stated that the term "Stickiness [...] refers to the need to create content that attracts audience attention and engagement." (Pg4) I feel that most people strive for their writing to have spreadability and stickiness.

         Although I do not work for an online blog where I would publish my writing, I am very active on Twitter specifically. Whenever I’m writing a tweet, a lot of energy goes into it. I write what’s currently on my mind, stare at the tweet and see if I can rearrange the words to make it sound better. I think about my audience and who reads my tweets, which would hopefully give my tweet some stickiness and spreadability.  When I finally send out the tweet, I feel very content when it gets a lot of retweets and likes.

         The reason why I put so much effort into my tweets and worry so much about the spreadability and stickiness is because I think that it takes someone clever and intelligent to write a funny relatable tweet. Whenever I get a lot of likes or retweets on a tweet, I feel flattered that people enjoy my commentary and writing. I also enjoy the fact that people are able to relate to my writing and want to share it on their own twitter page.

         As shown in the Russel Smith article, there are often people who don’t think about spreadability or stickiness when they decide to post comments on social media. The article stated that media outlets will be suspending comment on social media posts regarding certain important topics. This was caused by others posting pointless, rude, and offensive comments. I find it hard to believe that when these people are writing their comments, they are thinking about their audience and who will see it.  

Journal 5 Carly Gillingham

For my own everyday composing, spread ability is actually very important. I co-run a magazine at FSU called Burning Tree Magazine, and assist in doing the marketing for it. When we post stories to our social media, a number of factors come into play for stickiness and spreadability. Jenkins et al. define spreadability as “the technical resources that make it easier to circulate some kinds of content than others, the economic structures that support or restrict circulation, the attributes of a media text that might appeal to a community’s motivation for sharing material, and the social networks that link people through the exchange of meaningful bytes.” They define stickiness, on the other hand, as the broad “need to create content that attracts audience attention and engagement.” In short, therefore, spreadability relies on social connections and outside resources, while stickiness relies on attractiveness and audience appeal.

For my magazine, when we post articles on social media, we consider what resources we can consult for spreadability. On Facebook and Twitter, we can utilize hashtags or tagging users if the given topic is something that has been recently trending or if it is about a person of some importance. For instance, we have written an article about Donald Trump in the past, in which we tagged Trump’s twitter on the tweet of the article. Another resource that we often consult is pursuing other organizations on campus that may be able to promote our article. For instance, we have written movie reviews that were subsequently promoted by the Student Life Cinema; we have also written articles about being transgender that we submitted for promotion by the Pride Student Union. Having these connections is vital in marketing our articles. We do not choose to use Facebook’s promotion, which you have to pay for, but that is another possible way to promote everyday writing.

Stickiness, as a part of spreadability, is also important for the magazine. We like to make our articles have “clickable” titles. So, we make sure the title is short and not cut off by the link preview. We also want to make it intriguing.

For my own personal writing outside of the magazine, I do not focus on spreadability so much as stickiness. When I post on Instagram, I want to get likes, so I make it “sticky.” But I do not necessarily want it to spread to a wider audience. The only time I am focused on spreading to a wider audience is when I share magazine articles.

Journal #5-Jenna Kelley

Yes, I do think about the potential for spreadability in my everyday composing. According to Jenkins, Ford & Green, “‘spreadability’ refers to the potential-both technical and cultural-for audiences to share content for their own purposes, sometimes with the permission of rights holders, sometimes against their wishes” (3).  I think about the potential for spreadability because I am a staff writer for HerCampus FSU. Bi-weekly, I write an article that gets published online that I want all of my friends to share, so that they have their friends share it and that way my article gets read. One of the main goals of being a writer, I believe, is the spreadability of your writings. Jenkins, Ford & Green also say that “a spreadable mentality focuses on creating media texts that various audiences may circulate for different purposes, inviting people to shape the context of the material as they share it within their social circles” (6). Every time I write an article, I am constantly trying to reach out to others for any reason; therefore, I tailor my story to their interests in order for spreadability to occur.

            I also use spreadability on social media, besides writing for HerCampus. For example, Twitter is the basis of spreadability. If someone has a Twitter account, it is solely for others to read their posts. If it were not, they would just write in their own diary. Also, Twitter has a “retweet”, “like”, and “quote tweet” button in order for your submission to be spread.

            I am currently using the potential for spreadability with my Journal Reflection. As I post this to our WEPO Blog page, I am posting it for other classmates to see, as well as the professor. I am circulating this post to a social site. Jenkins, Ford & Green also say that people are open to others sharing content as it shows a connection of shared interests (13). Likewise, I am sharing my HerCampus posts for a common shared interest of others, just as I am posting this Journal Reflection for a common shared interest of my classmates. Overall, I would definitely say that I compose for the potential of spreadability because, at the end of the day, I am always writing for a specific audience.

Allie Wisniewski Journal #5

According to the article by Jenkins, Ford, and Green, “spreadability” refers to “the technical resources that make it easier to circulate some kinds of content than others, the economic structures that support or restrict circulation, the attributes of a media text that might appeal to a community's motivation for sharing material, and the social networks that link people through the exchange of meaningful bytes.” While I do not always immediately consider the potential for spreadability in my every day composing, it has been, in the past, a major factor in certain contexts and rhetorical situations. 

In the fall semester of my freshman year, I wrote for an online, college student-run publication called Spoon University. The website essentially revolved around Buzzfeed-style click bait articles—all related to food. The main goal for each article was collecting as many Facebook shares, Pinterest posts, etc. as possible, in order to increase traffic for the site and entice readers to view other articles that could be related. We were constantly reminded to choose topics that could be relatable for either a specific or extremely broad audience, in order to appeal to as many readers as possible and increase the potential for spreadability. We brainstormed—thinking of subjects and issues that we ourselves, as college students, would want to click on and read if we were to come upon it while scrolling or simply surfing the web. The more a reader resonated with a particular article, the more likely they were to share it to their own timeline, successively reaching more and more viewers as articles graced the news feeds of friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. We were told to use tags on each post—essentially generating buzz words that would allow each article to be more easily stumbled upon if someone were to search a related topic. 

There are multiple online techniques that are frequently used to increase the spreadability of web content, including CSS feed, HTML, and hyperlinks, to name a few. Links are provided to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and even Google Plus (Do people actually use that?), for the sole purpose of encouraging the viewer to make our job easier by sharing the article on all of their preferred social media platforms, increasing the accessibility of the content to a broader audience. Spreadability has become increasingly simple with the rise to prominence of social media.