A couple of hours after I had finished a discussion with students in my media and society class I noticed on Twitter that Heath Ledger had died in New York.

We had been talking in class about, among other things, the idea of “viral” as it applies to the spread of information online. We had talked about a lot of concepts during class, some pretty tough like “semiotic democracy,” and some easier, like collaboration online.

The Ledger story, as Daniel Sieberg points out, was one of those “new media moments” (as I heard one professor refer to them as) that are no longer just a moment but clearly the way people in their 20s operate. TMZ posted what they claimed was he scoop on Ledger’s death about an hour after his maid found his body. About 20 minutes later his biography had been changed on Wikipedia to include his death. People changed their Facebook pages to indicate they knew about it. Twitter starting tweeting. News spread quick.

I though students might struggle with the idea of “viral journalism” (or perhaps I thought I might have trouble explaining it to them). Although it seems like a fairly simple idea – that news works almost like gossip now because of our connectedness – it’s not exactly a you-know-it-when-you-see-it idea. I once again underestimated the students. They immediately got it. It’s absolutely intuitive to them. Second nature. When they hear news they pass it along – immediately.