BUZZFEED : AN ANALYSIS OF INTERNET MEDIA

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Identification of Media Outlet and Justification

Media is known as the mass communication tool to store and deliver

information or data. It also refers to elements of the mass media communications
industry such as print media, publishing, the news media, photography, cinema,
broadcasting, digital media, and advertising (Lister et al., 2008). Internet is defined as
a global network of interconnected computers that communicate freely and share and
exchange information. Internet media comprise such services as email, social media
sites, websites, and Internet-based radio and television. Many other mass media
outlets have an additional presence on the web, by such means as linking to or
running TV ads online, or distributing QR Codes in outdoor or print media to direct
mobile users to a website. In this way, they can use the easy accessibility and outreach
capabilities the Internet affords, as thereby easily broadcast information throughout
many different regions of the world simultaneously and cost-efficiently.
This study focuses on Internet media because of the impact it has on today’s
generation. When observing the public, you will see many people carry a digital
device with them. Be it a smartphone or a tablet, it brings convenience to many. Most
of the traditional media have shifted their medium to the Internet because it is easily
accessible and the outreach is more significant compared to just solely relying on
traditional ways to publish media.

1.2 Description and Summary of the Organisation’s Content and Operations

BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment

company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was
founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral
content. Their massive cross-platform network includes: BuzzFeed Originals, which
creates articles, lists, quizzes, and videos; BuzzFeed Media Brands, which comprises
a portfolio of identity-driven lifestyle brands including Nifty, Goodful, As/Is, and
Tasty, the world’s largest social food network; BuzzFeed Studios, which produces
original content across broadcast, cable, SVOD, film and digital platforms; and
BuzzFeed News and HuffPost, which include world-class reporting and investigative
 journalism. The company also includes BuzzFeed Commerce, which develops
products and experiences, as well as licensing and other strategic partnerships.

2.0 Functions of the Internet Media

The functions of internet media are the same as the functions of other media outlets.
The only difference is that internet media focuses more coverage on transmitting information
digitally and it is possible to track back publications that are published a long time ago. This
is a good feature as it can easily search news or articles that are impactful to the society.
2.1 Surveillance Function

Surveillance refers to a wide range of problems that have an influence on

society. It is one of the most important social phenomena that define modernity (as
cited in Lyon, 2012). BuzzFeed has published a number of articles alerting readers of
coming risks, as well as acute and chronic concerns. When BuzzFeed published a
storey on the ride-sharing service Uber, whose executives are able to see the
whereabouts of anybody using the app, BuzzFeed published an article that warned the
public that this may have negative consequences for society. It was rather disturbing,
and no one seemed to notice what was going on. Uber created a privacy policy for the
first time the day after BuzzFeed published their article, and claimed they will
investigate their top New York officials for privacy violations. "29 Things Everyone
with Nipples Should Know," according to a BuzzFeed article. "BuzzFeed Saved Me!"
was the topic of a user email in response to this post. As it turned out, a lady read the
article and realised something was wrong with her own breast, so she went to the
doctor and was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer, which was curable because it
was caught early. BuzzFeed also provides useful and helpful articles to their
audiences in daily life such as they have published an article named “21 Of The Best
Home Security Products You Can Get On Amazon”. By releasing informative
content, BuzzFeed seeks to help audiences better their lives or be watchful to avoid
something unfortunate from happening. BuzzFeed is believed to present a lot of
information to its readers in order for them to know how to be alert of hazards before
they occur. The function of surveillance is particularly crucial in today's culture to
assist the audience in recognizing any concerns before detrimental situations occur.
2.2 Interpretation Function

The purpose of the interpretation function is to offer information about the

meaning and significance of events for the audience to have a better grasp of what is
occurring in the news and how well it affects society. BuzzFeed interprets information
in a variety of ways, some of which are more or less explicit and ethical. Newspaper
editorials have traditionally been clear assessments of current events, and today
BuzzFeed provides social, cultural, and political opinion that is full of subjective
interpretations.
The way BuzzFeed interpretates their information by writing articles about the
news or information they have gathered. The articles written by BuzzFeed have
headlines which are very attractive and short. The average headline for a BuzzFeed
headline is only about 10 words long as around 59 characters long. This is an
important fact as at 59 characters, the title won't get cut off in search engine results
such as Google Search and won't be over Twitter's character limits when shared.
BuzzFeed also writes their articles in a short and simple manner. According to
recent studies, BuzzFeed’s most popular articles are written in a very simple way. The
average length of a BuzzFeed article is only about 155 words long and is written in
such a simple manner that even a 4th grade child which about the ages of 9 to 10 can
easily read and understand them whereas articles from other websites such as CNN
written that children at the 7th grade level which are between the ages of 12 to 13
years old.
Another way BuzzFeed interpretates their information is by creating listicles
which is what BuzzFeed is very well known for creating. Listicles are a combination
of the words “list” and “article”. Listicles are articles which are written in list-format.
The list will normally include either a few sentences or multiple paragraphs which are
normally written to either educate readers or read for fun. Examples of listicles are
'The Top 10 Movies of 2020’ or ‘Top 5 Actresses of 2020’ and etc.
To sum it up BuzzFeed creates and writes articles and listicles which have
catching short headlines and the articles written by them are both short and easy to
understand.
2.3 Linkage Function

Thirdly, BuzzFeed has provided the function of linkage. Linkage is to bring

disparate aspects of society together that are not necessarily linked. Besides, two
groups of people that are geographically separated could also link together by sharing
the common interests, needs, and wants. Without a doubt, BuzzFeed has performed a
function of linkage to the society. This enormous platform network incorporates of
different type of series which bring the society together.
First of all, BuzzFeed News is a series which focuses on providing breaking
news and stories, for instance, world news, viral trends, health, social media, and so
on. Therefore, this series could link people which has the common interest together.
For example, this media outlet might provide the world class breaking news to the
society, such as victims who suffered from natural disaster. In this way, people who
are geographically separated from the victims could also provide help for the victims.
Therefore, people might not get to know all the information around the world
and might not be able to help the victims without the help of BuzzFeed news. This is
then why this media outlet provides the function of linkage to the society. Next,
BuzzFeed Media Brands is another platform of the media outlet, and it incorporates of
different brands, for example, Tasty. It is the world’s biggest food network that
contains content of food videos and recipes. Therefore, this series would then link
people together from all around the world by sharing the common interests, which are
cook or eat.
Apart from this, this series contains of videos of comfort food which may
possibly link to the needs of people which have certain cravings for food. In
conclusion, BuzzFeed has successfully provide the function of linkage to the society
in many ways.

2.4 Transmission of Values Function

Transmission of value is one of the crucial functions of the mass media. It is
also known as a socialization function. Dominick (2012) asserted that the process
through which an individual accepts a group’s attitude and ideals is indicated as
socialization.
 ‘What Is Your Darkest Secret?’; ‘Which Cookies Are You?’. These are
questions from a never-ending series of BuzzFeed quizzes (Quinn,2017). Most of the
quizzes are personality identification quizzes. They are just for fun and have no
scientific basis. However, people still tend to believe the result. This has caused
people to have a certain transmission with their behaviour. They would start to
standardize themselves within the prescribed personality that the quiz’s result shows
and try to act like that personality.
BuzzFeed delivers news to a global audience. Dominick (2012) said, the
media portrays our culture, and we learn how people are meant to act and what ideals
are essential through watching, listening, and reading. (For instance, news of a
country having an explosion would cause individuals to have the stereotype that the
country is dangerous. Moreover, individuals who are exposed to media depictions of
specific sorts of behaviour and value systems are likely to embrace them as their own
as they grow up (Dominick,2012). Women will believe they are dangerous outside if
they see posts encouraging them to protect themselves and instil the same value in
their daughter.
Sometimes, the media makes a purposeful effort to teach values and behaviour
to its viewers (Dominick, 2012) including BuzzFeed. (BuzzFeed tries to create
awareness of the disadvantages of certain behaviours to the public. BuzzFeed makes a
video titled ‘How Does Smoking Affect Your Face?’, they make up people’s faces as
they look after smoking to increase their chances of quitting smoking successfully.
Through this video, BuzzFeed successfully publicizes the negative impact of smoking
on the public.

2.5 Entertainment Function

The other well-known function of media is entertainment. It is also regarded

as the most obvious role of media (Dominick, 2012). Entertainment played a role in
media by helping people relax and make a way of escaping the stresses of daily life
(Functions of Mass Communication, n.d.). It has grown in importance as people have
gained more spare time throughout the pandemic. BuzzFeed fulfils this function by
providing mass entertainment such as articles on pop culture, fun quizzes, and videos
to keep its audiences entertained.
 Firstly, BuzzFeed’s content creators will write articles about pop culture
which is about famous movies and TV shows such as Harry Potter, Dune, Friends,
Squid Game, and many more. The content of the articles mostly is about recapping
the show and the fun facts of the celebrities who played in the movies or TV shows.
Therefore, these contents could entertain audiences by bringing new and interesting
knowledge of their favourite celebrities and movies or TV shows. Furthermore,
BuzzFeed provides entertainment to society by creating fun quizzes with categories
such as trivia, zodiac, food, love, geography, and K-Pop on their websites or social
media platforms. For instance, BuzzFeed have a quiz party option where you can
challenge the quizzes together with your friends or you can play the quizzes alone
during your free time. Hence, this helps people to release their stress from work and
entertain their free time.
In addition, BuzzFeed Video also performed the entertainment function by
posting videos daily on their YouTube channel. For example, most of the videos in
the channel are comedies and one of the famous playlists would be ‘The Try Guys’
which is about four men who will try anything to entertain their audiences.
Thus, these kinds of comedy videos could entertain the audiences by bringing
them joy and happiness which is the main function of entertainment. In short,
BuzzFeed had performed the entertainment function efficiently in providing
interesting and fun articles, quizzes, and videos to the society.

3.0 Conclusion

To conclude, Buzzfeed is one of the Internet media platforms that covers an array of
functions which does not only entertain users but also educate them on certain knowledge.
Besides that, they also transmit important news information to the users as well. Buzzfeed’s
coverage in the Internet is quite significant compared to many other smaller Internet media
outlets. They are now recognized internationally and cover many contents about different
countries and cultures to cater to most of the users. This is a good point as it attracts more
international users to go on Buzzfeed more often in comparison to other Internet media
outlets.
Overall, Buzzfeed has been innovating the past decade and adapting to the current
trend and always thinking of new strategies to cater to people of different cultures.
References

1. Lister, M., Dovey, J., Giddings, S., Grant, I., & Kelly, K. (2008). New media: A
critical introduction. Routledge.
http://www.philol.msu.ru/~discours/images/stories/speckurs/New_media.pdf
2. Connolly, B. (2015). “How BuzzFeed Discovered the Secret to Success on Social
Media.” https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250963
3. Lyon, D. (2012). Surveillance studies: an overview (p. 14). Cambridge: Polity Press.
4. Brantner, E. (2016) “The Science Behind Buzzfeed's Viral Content ”
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/science-behind-buzzfeeds-viral-content
5. Dominick, J. (2012). Dynamics of mass communication: Media in transition.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ProQuest Ebook Central,
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sunway/detail.action?docID=6327861.   

6. Quinn, Sarah M. (2017). "Feeding our Identities: BuzzFeed Quizzes as a Tool for
Personal Identification in the Social Digital Age" Communication & Media Studies
Theses. 1. http://docs.rwu.edu/communication_theses/1
 Appendices

Appendix 1

Source : https://www.buzzfeed.com/elizabethlilly/best-home-security-products-on-amazon-2018

Appendix 2
Source : https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/theresatamkins/cancer-death-rate-dropping

Appendix 3

Source : https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/azeenghorayshi/pfizer-covid-vaccine-booster-shots-eligible

Appendix 4
Source : https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kirstenchilstrom/haiti-tropical-storm-photos

Appendix 5

Source : https://tasty.co/article/melissaharrison/easy-dinner-recipes

Appendix 6
Source : https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/beirut-explosion-fire-lebanon

Appendix 7

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szbR-8-pgv8&t=102s

Appendix 8
Source : https://www.buzzfeed.com/tvandmovies

Appendix 9

Source : https://www.buzzfeed.com/quizparty?utm_source=buzzfeed&utm_campaign=bf_nav_menu