In this day and age when people put a lot of effort into making their videos or news stories viral, there's one sure-fire way to garner some extra attention - put a cat in it. Instagram is full of pictures of cats, and your Facebook news feed likely sees a cat video from time to time. Grumpy Cat is a household name, and face. But what implication does this have with the quality of news we receive? Is it a sign that we as a society are dumbing down? Or is there more to it?
I decided to take these questions to University of Illinois journalism professor Matthew Ehrlich, he's been researchingthe topic.
Click herefor a write-up on Ehrlich's research done by Poynter.
