Shareworthiness is a term used in the academic literature since 2015 or so to indicate a characteristic of online content that spreads rapidly on social networks. Yet, diffusion of news was studied before the introduction of the share button on platforms used for blogging or for social networking – this is, before user-generated content acquired a share-ability characteristic, due to the technological innovations linked to the share function.
In communication studies, the diffusion of major news events, such as the assassination of U.S. President J. F. Kennedy or the Challenger space shuttle disaster, has been a research topic since the 1960s. Researchers have found that information about major news events tends to spread in a matter of hours to reach most citizens in a given area. The excitement and emotional involvement are so high that even strangers share the news they have just learned from radio or TV. Yet, most news is shared only in small and extremely small circles. Research on the diffusion of news indicates that salience, “the degree to which a news event is perceived as important by individuals”, is an important factor in shareworthiness. Salience can be signalled in the way news is packaged by journalists, with bold headlines or with the breaking news label. When it comes to the content of the news, salience is related to what journalists and academia call newsworthiness features: if a celebrity is involved (prominence), if the news affects the audience in some way (human interest and consequences), or if it has local relevance (proximity). Other factors that influence the diffusion of news are situational variables, represented by immediate access to mass media or to interpersonal networks.
As compared to mainstream media, communication platforms have a business model that eliminates gatekeepers and at the same time supports sharing and vitalization of user generated content. Social media users can share news content from mainstream newsrooms, alongside content that mimics news and entertainment from various sources, and there is no editor to decide if the content is worth sharing. The content available on platforms is now so diverse that more than half of digital audiences report social media as a regular news source. Research into the diffusion of information has shifted its focus online. A recent study on shared news content identifies the following shareworthiness elements: proximity (either spatial or cultural), high positivity or high negativity, conflict, and human interest (the latter, depending on the social media under discussion). Another article studying a health campaign adds to the criteria for shareworthiness unusualness and useful information, and a combination of graphics and text. Novelty and emotional appeal are also characteristics of viral false information. For hyper-partisan news (including conspiracy theories), shareworthiness is tied to proximity, conflict, and human interest. While shareworthiness (what online users find interesting) is linked to newsworthiness (what journalists believe their audience would find interesting), research on offline and online information diffusion indicates that other elements are also important: extreme emotional involvement, novelty, the packaging of the informational content, the social media platform (Twitter users behaving differently from Facebook users), and individual characteristics, such as polarization on a social issue and a bias towards a certain type of content (science related content or conspiracy theories, for example).
