The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Master's Theses Summer 8-2011 The Viral Fingerprint: A Content Analysis of Popular Viral Advertisements Thomas Grant Broadus II University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses Part of the Broadcast and Video Studies Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Mass Communication Commons, and the Public Relations and Advertising Commons Recommended Citation Broadus, Thomas Grant II, "The Viral Fingerprint: A Content Analysis of Popular Viral Advertisements" (2011). Master's Theses. 230. https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/230 This Masters Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The University of Southern Mississippi THE VIRAL FINGERPRINT: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF POPULAR VIRAL ADVERTISEMENTS by Thomas Grant Broadus II A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Approved: _Dr. Fei Xue_________________________ Director _Dr. David Davies____________________ _Dr. Mary Lou Sheffer_________________ _Susan A. Siltanen____________________ Dean of the Graduate School August 2011 ABSTRACT THE VIRAL FINGERPRINT: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF POPULAR VIRAL ADVERTISEMENTS by Thomas Grant Broadus II August 2011 This paper presents an analysis of 280 online videos that appeared on the Advertising Age weekly chart of the top ten viral videos of the week; the videos appeared on the chart from March 23 rd 2009 to March 9 th 2011.