What’s the mechanism that makes a political video go viral? What causes a video clip to spread from a few people to millions, sometimes in a matter of hours? Is it a top-down process led by elite gatekeepers or bottoms up, driven by people at the grass roots? And how do blogs affect the life cycle of a viral video?
Common wisdom might suggest that a posse of political blogs triggers virality, but research from the UW indicates it often springs from just two elite blogs followed by top general interest outlets that aren’t considered political.