Abstract:

Viral videos, for example on YouTube, are internationally controversial discussed (Burgess et al. 2009; Khan 2017). Proponents of viral advertising see the opportunities that lie in attractive digital advertising formats that catch the interest of mainly young users emotionally (Dobele et al. 2005), that gives the appearance of authenticity, e.g. in so-called Haul Videos (Harnish et al. 2016; Sykes 2014), and that are spread in social media virtually in real time via the sharing function (Gladwell 2000). Opponents of this form of advertising, on the other hand, place the dangers and risks in the foreground when “innocent” internet surfers, especially children and young people, are confronted with content whose actual advertising intentions they may not be aware of (Calvert 2008; Šramová 2015). However, for media education and media ethics, it is by no means clear what those opponents fear. Virality is by no means new. On the other hand, although the phenomenon with its ethical and educational implications is old (Rath 2017), social media has increased the speed of sharing media content to an unprecedented extent. The “participatory culture” (Jenkins 2006) of digital production (Bruns 2006; Ito 2010) and sharing lead to a new form of not professional one-to-many communication (Payne 2014) especially of children and young people. The paper follows up the question of whether virality is a teaching topic and how we can teach students the media and ethical skills to deal with virality in a self-determined and critical manner. It uses examples from film and internet and describes the actual reasons for viral sharing while considering the ethical and pedagogical principles in teaching and education. Virality is not new ethical ground. It is an old subject, namely whether we can vouch for what we pass on.

Keywords:

Media education, media ethics, virality, sharing, viral advertising, social media.