On The Media Going Viral, Antebellum Style The Infectious Texts project at Northeastern University is making thousands of pre-Civil War newspapers searchable. Bob talks with Ryan Cordell, a leader on the project, about the mechanism behind text virality in the 1800’s and some of what’s been discovered so far. [AUDIO]
Motherboard How Stories Went Viral in Antebellum America Researchers at Northeastern University explored this old-school viral spread, by studying 41,829 old newspapers to examine how the old gray ladies facilitated the transfer of articles and ideas across America before the Civil War. Just as with memes, the internet usually gets too much credit for killing newspapers. The newspaper that was left to be felled by Craigslist […]