Viral

Desde sus orígenes a mediados de los noventa, la aplicación del concepto de viralidad a la comunicación comercial ha representado para las marcas una oportunidad para franquear las tradicionales barreras de la audiencia ante la publicidad y convertirla en transmisora activa de los mensajes de la marca. El marketing viral se basa, desde entonces, en dos principios básicos: ofrecer al individuo contenidos gratuitos y atractivos que disfrazan su finalidad comercial y usar un sistema de difusión de usuario en usuario. La transformación del espectador pasivo en usuario activo que difunde mensajes de tipo publicitario promovidos por anunciantes, responde a una serie de necesidades y motivaciones de los individuos y a una serie de características de los contenidos que han sido descritos por la investigación previa en este campo, principalmente a través de metodologías de tipo cuantitativo basadas en las percepciones de los usuarios. El presente artículo analiza, a través de la metodología del análisis de contenido, la presencia de los elementos que trabajos de investigación anteriores han señalado como favorecedores de la acción de compartir en los 25 vídeos publicitarios virales con más «shares» entre 2006 y 2013. Los resultados obtenidos muestran las características más comunes en este tipo de vídeos y la presencia destacada de la sorpresa y la alegría como emociones dominantes en los vídeos virales más exitosos.

A new theory of viral relationality beyond the biological

In this thought-provoking work, Tony D. Sampson presents a contagion theory fit for the age of networks. Unlike memes and microbial contagions, Virality does not restrict itself to biological analogies and medical metaphors. It instead points toward a theory of contagious assemblages, events, and affects. For Sampson, contagion is not necessarily a positive or negative force of encounter; it is how society comes together and relates.

Sampson argues that a biological knowledge of contagion has been universally distributed by way of the rhetoric of fear in the antivirus industry and other popular discourses surrounding network culture. This awareness is also detectable in concerns over too much connectivity, such as problems of global financial crisis and terrorism. Sampson’s “virality” is as established as that of the biological meme and microbe but is not understood through representational thinking expressed in metaphors and analogies. Rather, Sampson interprets contagion theory through the social relationalities first established in Gabriel Tarde’s microsociology and subsequently recognized in Gilles Deleuze’s ontological worldview.

According to Sampson, the reliance on representational thinking to explain the social behavior of networking—including that engaged in by nonhumans such as computers—allows language to overcategorize and limit analysis by imposing identities, oppositions, and resemblances on contagious phenomena. It is the power of these categories that impinges on social and cultural domains. Assemblage theory, on the other hand, is all about relationality and encounter, helping us to understand the viral as a positively sociological event, building from the molecular outward, long before it becomes biological.


Tarde and Deleuze come beautifully together in this outstanding book, the first to really put forward a serious alternative to neo-Darwinian theories of virality, contagion, and memetics. A thrilling read that bears enduring consequences for our understanding of network cultures. Unmissable.
—

Tiziana Terranova, author of Network Culture


Impressive and ambitious, Virality offers a new theory of the viral as a sociological event.
—
Brian Rotman, Ohio State University

Desde la aparición del concepto de viralidad aplicado a la comunicación a mediados de la década de los 90, la asunción y propagación del término en el ámbito del marketing y de la comunicación publicitaria ha sido imparable.
A pesar de que el planteamiento es más complejo, la idea inicial de viralidad aplicada por el marketing se basa en la ocultación del objetivo publicitario del contenido y en su difusión de usuario en usuario. Así pues, este “nuevo” enfoque, presenta una serie de características que lo hacen especialmente interesante para la comunicación comercial en su empeño por rebasar las barreras de protección de los consumidores ante los mensajes publicitarios. Esta práctica, que en nuestros días está plenamente consolidada, se manifiesta especialmente en el auge creciente de los vídeos virales publicitarios en los últimos años.
La comunicación propuesta pretende reflexionar sobre los planteamientos iniciales del concepto de viralidad, sobre sus beneficios en la comunicación publicitaria y sobre su evolución, críticas y nuevos conceptos asociados.

Summary.  Although there are no dietary restrictions recommended in acute viral hepatitis (AVH), there is an altered food intake, probably because of perceptions and traditional nutritional practices, leading to sub-optimal intake and poorer clinical outcome. Therefore, we aimed to determine nutritional intake of AVH patients before and after disease onset and to investigate if optimal intake following nutrition education shortened the length of hospitalization (LOH). Seventy-five patients with AVH were interviewed for foods consumed and avoided because of perceptions during illness. Nutrition education was given to all patients with meal plan. In-patients were monitored for their nutritional intake until discharge. All patients were followed up after 2 weeks to assess compliance to the plan. There was a statistically significant decrease in mean calorie and protein intake in AVH patients during illness [1314 kcal (standard deviation, SD 291) and 27.5 g (SD 8.84)] when compared with that before onset of the disease [1873 kcal (SD 246) and 51.5 g (SD 8.03); P < 0.0001]. Mean LOH in patients consuming a high calorie diet [6.28 days (SD 2.91)] was significantly lower than those consuming low calories [8.36 days (SD 2.59), P = 0.024]. Two-week follow up revealed that 70% of patients modified their diet to a balanced normal diet as per the given plan. Our study showed that AVH patients consumed sub-optimal calories because of perceptions and traditional nutritional practices. Nutrition education played a major role in achieving overall nutritional goals and in decreasing the LOH.

The clinical outcome of acute pancreatitis complicating acute exacerbation of chronic hepatitis virus B (HBV) infection has never been studied. Ninety patients with acute pancreatitis were recruited. Five patients (5.6%)(Group 1) had acute pancreatitis ...

In small ruminant lentivirus infections, cellular immune responses are diminished in clinically affected animals. The underlying mechanisms for this are unknown. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that alterations in expression of the co-stimulatory molecules B7-1 and B7-2 ...

Previous studies showed that DNA immunization of newborn mice with plasmids expressing influenza virus antigens induced protective immunity. We have now extended the study of neonatal responsiveness to DNA vaccines to nonhuman primates. Baboons immunized as neonates with plasmids expressing type A influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) and nucleoprotein (NP) in doses ranging from 40 microg to 1 mg per plasmid per dose developed virus-specific humoral responses. The titer and kinetics of appearance of virus-specific IgG antibodies were dose dependent. Specific antibodies were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as early as 1 month after birth in baboons immunized with the highest and intermediate doses of vaccine. Virus-neutralizing antibodies were detected in the group of baboons immunized with the highest dose. The specificity of virus-neutralizing antibodies was found to be directed against homologous determinants of HA; however, the IgG antibodies also cross-reacted with HA of a drift variant. Thus, DNA vaccination of newborn baboons with a prototype vaccine against influenza virus resulted in induction of specific humoral immunity.

Summary.  Long-term changes in the frequency and outcome of hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infection have seldom been analysed. This retrospective, longitudinal study includes 398 consecutive hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive patients with anti-HDV antibodies who attended our institution between 1983 and 2008. At enrolment, 182 patients had acute and 216 chronic hepatitis. Patients were grouped into two periods. Those who attended between 1983 and 1995 and those between 1996 and 2008. The former group was significantly younger, mainly intravenous drugs users, and had a greater incidence of acute HDV and HIV and HCV coinfection. Patients with acute HBV/HDV coinfection cleared both infections in 90% of cases, while all patients with HDV superinfection evolved to chronic disease. One hundred and fifty-eight patients with chronic HDV were followed for a median period of 158 months. Seventy-two per cent of the patients remained stable, 18% had hepatic decompensation, 3% developed hepatocellular carcinoma, and 8% cleared HBsAg. Liver-related death was observed in 13% of patients and mainly occurred in patients from the first period (P = 0.012). These results indicate an outbreak of HDV at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, with a large number of acute HDV cases affecting predominately young, male intravenous drug users. Currently, patients with chronic HDV disease are older, and factors associated with worse prognosis include the presence of cirrhosis and age at the time of diagnosis.

Summary.  To evaluate, among 70 hepatitis C virus (HCV)-monoinfected and 36 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-coinfected naïve patients with genotypes 1/4 receiving weight-adjusted pegylated interferon-α-2b/ribavirin, viral kinetics and the feasibility to predict treatment failure measuring early HCV-RNA decreases. HCV-RNA was assessed at baseline, weeks 4, 12 and 24. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated to determine the most sensitive cut-off values of viral decrease at week 4 predicting treatment failure. Baseline predictors of failure were evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses. Despite similar baseline HCV-RNA (5·75 vs 5·72 log10IU/ml, P = 0·6), HCV monoinfection led to significantly lower HCV-RNA values at weeks 4 (3·7 vs 4·3 log10IU/ml, P = 0·01), 12 (2·3 vs 3·5 log10IU/ml, P = 0·01) and 24 (1·4 vs 3·3 log10IU/ml, P = 0·001) and a higher rates of viral clearance at weeks 24 (60%vs 36%, P = 0·02), 48 (46%vs 25%, P = 0.03) and 72 (37%vs 17%). The lack of achieving an HCV-RNA decrease of at least 1 log10 at week 4 was highly predictive of treatment failure for HCV-monoinfected patients (Se 100%, Sp 50%, positive predictive value (PPV) 57%, negative predictive value (NPV) 100%, ROC curve area, 0·86 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0·77–0·95], but not for HCV/HIV-coinfected patients (cut-off, 0 log10, Se 100%, Sp 27%, PPV 21%, NPV 100%, ROC curve area, 0·71 (95% CI 0·49–0·93). HIV coinfection was independently associated with failure (odds ratio 2.95, 95% CI 1·08–8.04, P = 0·01). Thus the magnitude of HCV-RNA decreases at week 4 correlated with treatment response. Significant differences in viral kinetics and cut-off values predicting nonresponse suggest a slower HCV clearance rate in HIV coinfection, which was independently associated with treatment failure.