Zombies, Brains, and Tweets: The Neural and Emotional Correlates of Social Media

What constitutes audience engagement? What elements of a show produce the most social activity? Much attention has been paid to Twitter’s ability to capture real-time audience reactions and sentiment towards a television show, but little is known about what subjects drive an individual to tweet (or conversely, not to tweet). Though common sense may suggest that especially provocative, humorous, or emotional moments generate the most activity on social media, are these moments also the most neurologically stimulating? By combining social media data, content analysis, and brain scans, this study attempts to answer these questions using AMC’s hit show, The Walking Dead, as a case study.