Abstract
This research aims to gain insight on the perception that minors have of viral challenges as an entertainment format and the motivations behind their participation in this digital entertainment phenomenon. A qualitative study was performed by way of twelve focus groups with sixty-two minors aged between eleven and seventeen years from Spain. For minors, viral challenges represent a form of entertainment in an interactive context, perceived as innocuous, ephemeral content from which nothing more is required than for the user to have a good time. This appears to lead the minors interviewed to ignore the meaning and origin of the viral challenges they visualise and share, neither do they regard this to be necessary. It is also important to underline the relativisation of risk and danger in favour of spectacularisation and virality.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Research Plan of the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), 2020–2022 biennium. We also wish to thank Mari-Carmen Sánchez-Vizcaíno, (Faculty of Applied Languages University of Economics, Bratislava, Eslovaquia) for her translation of the original manuscript into English.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
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- Does credibility become trivial when the message is right? Populist radical-right attitudes, perceived message credibility, and the spread of disinformation
- Can media literacy help to promote civic participation? It’s not quite that simple
- Media malaise or mobilization during repeat elections? Evidence from Israel’s three consecutive rounds of elections (2019–2020)
- Ageing bodies and beauty in selected Polish women’s magazines
- Viral challenges as a digital entertainment phenomenon among children. Perceptions, motivations and critical skills of minors
- Attention capital in populist network communication: When the free labour of citizens maintains the spiral of attention
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- Book reviews
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- Moreno-Castro, C., Krzewińska A., & Dzimińska, M. (Eds.) (2024). How citizens view science communication: Pathways to knowledge. Routledge, 172 pp.
- Araujo, T., & Neijens, P. (Eds.) (2024). Communication research into the digital society. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 274 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Articles
- Does credibility become trivial when the message is right? Populist radical-right attitudes, perceived message credibility, and the spread of disinformation
- Can media literacy help to promote civic participation? It’s not quite that simple
- Media malaise or mobilization during repeat elections? Evidence from Israel’s three consecutive rounds of elections (2019–2020)
- Ageing bodies and beauty in selected Polish women’s magazines
- Viral challenges as a digital entertainment phenomenon among children. Perceptions, motivations and critical skills of minors
- Attention capital in populist network communication: When the free labour of citizens maintains the spiral of attention
- Emerging adults’ food media experiences: Preferences, opportunities, and barriers for food literacy promotion
- Cognitio populi – Vox populi: Implications of science-related populism for communication behavior
- Deficits and biases in the leading German press coverage of the Greek sovereign debt crisis
- Book reviews
- Evans, C., & Lundgren, L. (2023). No heavenly bodies: A history of satellite communications infrastructure. MIT Press, 256 pp.
- Moreno-Castro, C., Krzewińska A., & Dzimińska, M. (Eds.) (2024). How citizens view science communication: Pathways to knowledge. Routledge, 172 pp.
- Araujo, T., & Neijens, P. (Eds.) (2024). Communication research into the digital society. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 274 pp.