Embedded Links, Embedded Meanings: Social media commentary and news sharing as mundane media criticism

Social media transform the consumption environment of news by allowing users to separate individual stories from their original context within a bounded news product and recirculate them in new contexts. If, as this essay argues, the meaning of a news story stems from the interplay of textual and contextual elements, then this shift has interpretive consequences that require further conceptualization. An initial foray is made by developing a concept of mundane media criticism to account for the prevalence of social media commentary that accompanies the circulation of news stories through social media, including directly through news sharing. In this environment, to consume a news story is to simultaneously consume criticism of that story.