What is Spreadable Media?

We have all come across spreadable media in our lives you just probably haven't heard the term. Remember the YouTube video of the keyboard playing cat...

This also sparked off all kinds of remakes and spin offs, also meme's of cats, which are another form of spreadable media. 

I did some searching around the internet and spreadable media, I came across Henry Jenkins blog. His blog goes into much further detail, I mean he did write a book on it too (of which I'm currently reading).  I can try to give you the definition of spreadable media myself, however after reading the words of Henry Jenkins in an interview, I couldn't have put it better myself:

"The concept of spreadable media rests on the distinction between distribution (the top-down spread of media content as captured in the broadcast paradigm) and circulation (a hybrid system where content spreads as a result of a series of informal transactions between commercial and noncommercial participants.) Spreadable media is media which travels across media platforms at least in part because the people take it in their own hands and share it with their social networks.

This kind of informal circulation may be solicited or at least accepted by media producers as part of the normal way of doing business or it may take forms which get labeled piracy. Either way, the widespread circulation of media content through the conscious actions of dispersed networks of consumer/participants tends to create greater visibility and awareness as the content travels in unpredicted directions and encounters people who are potentially interested in further engagements with the people who produced it." (Jenkins, 2010) (Source)

He also tells us in his paper 'If It Doesn't Spread It's Dead: Creating Value in a Spreadable Marketplace" (2008) that spreadable media can be optimised by using the 5 following techniques:

• On a technical level, widgetization makes it much easier for us to
  

bring branded media content into our own spaces.

• Plentitude — the fragmentation and diversification of cultural life --
  

provides the cultural context which requires a much stronger match
between consumer interest and the available content, thus creating
a space which might support niche media and which would demand
the customization of mass media content to local particulars.

• 
  
• The Long Tail model reflects a rethinking of business plans to reflect
  

the risks and opportunities that emerge from this fragmentation and
localization of the mass media marketplace.

•  
• Online social networks provide mechanisms which allow trusted
  

recommendations to spread across different but intersecting
communities of interest, which blur the boundaries between virtual
and real world social interactions, and which allow consumers to
assert stronger social ties with brands, stars, and media properties.

• 
  
• Participatory culture allows consumers to take media in their own
  

hands, not simply selecting content from the menu of available
options, but also producing their own media, often in explicit
response to previously circulating materials.

Therefore I will now begin trying to produce original content using these theories and will update the blog when I have begun to show the progress.

References

Jenkins, H., Ford, S., Green, J., (2013). Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture: Spreadable Media. New York: New York University Press.

Jenkins, H., Li, X., Domb, A. and Green, J. (2008) If It Doesn't Spread It's Dead: Creating Value in a Spreadable Marketplace. Convergence Culture Consortium.


-AdamMark


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