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Empty Chairs

Audience Impact 

Overview: 

“Audience impact” refers to the degree in which any form of media resonates or affects the it’s audience. Social media can significantly shape the public opinion - both by giving marginilzed voices a platform to be heard or by reinforcing echo chambers - but the degree of impact varies widely depending on how a message resonates with its audience. In order for us to evaluate a trend or topic in terms of its resonance, or capacity to shape discourse, decision, or offline action as opposed to pure visibility we use a simple yet effective 1-5 scale. 

Minimal - A trend has little to no engagement, with negligible effects on behavior and/or opinion

Niche Effect - There is a small impact within a specific group or subculture but the impact does not exceed the subculture or group

Moderate - The trend/topic reaches general audience engagement accompanied by sharing or conversation but limited behavioral change

Significant - High visibility, influenced beliefs or actions in a large audience, sparks some level of public debate

Transformational - A trend redefines narratives or cultural norms, offline consequences i.e institutional changes or large scale action

Each analyzed trend or topic will be assessed and assigned a score according to this evaluation framework

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Research

​​Research for this metric was informed by academic and empirical studies that explore how content spreads and influences audiences online. A NYU study featured in WIRED analyzed how emotionally provocative and misleading content gains traction through social media algorithms. Pew Research provided data on generational news consumption patterns and how young users rely on social platforms as primary information sources. Additionally, a Science article by MIT researchers revealed that false information consistently spreads faster and reaches more people than factual content, reinforcing the need to assess audience impact in our analyses.

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Works Cited

 

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