Analysis: What makes readers click

In the second part of the assignment, you should write a short analytical essay about the two materials focusing on what makes readers click, while also discussing medium, receiver, argument, intention.

“The Six Things That Make You Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You”

The first text is an article by Maria Konnikova, published on The New Yorker website, on January 21, 2014, discussing research on what makes Internet content read and shared, and implicitly what makes readers click on certain headlines.

The medium in which the article was published is the website of the well-known American publication The New Yorker.

This implies that the receiver is mainly the American public, but also all English-speakers with access to the Internet.

The content of the article also indicates more specific target receivers. Because the article discusses research on what makes readers click on certain content, it indicates that interested receivers might be those who run websites, as it offers them valuable information for their business, but also scientific researchers interested in the topic.

The article relies mostly on open argumentation, presenting directly the points of the researchers on why some content goes viral: “Berger and Milkman found that two features predictably determined an article’s success: how positive its message was and how much it excited its reader.” (ll. 10-11)

However, notice that both the researcher and the author of the article are not open in their argumentation about whether clickbait is something positive or negative. Rather the author suggests indirectly (hidden argumentation) that this marketing strategy has become a common practice: “As I type, the lead story on its front page is “Her Little Boy Has No Idea His Mother Is About To Die. What She’s Doing About That Is Amazing”.” (ll. 53-55)

When analyzing the intentions of the article, you should both look at the intentions of those behin...