Essential and guiding questions:
- Discuss how the experience of listening to “Contagious Laughter” from RadioLab is different from reading the text from the New York Post.
- What quotes or moments from both texts strike you as the most significant?
- Identify and discuss the theories leading to the “outbreaks” in each text. What are the similarities between the two?
- Each text expresses doubt as to the leading theories of the causes of the outbreaks. Using examples from the text, discuss if this doubt is well founded.
- Step-Back: Some research suggests that social networks promote moments of mass hysteria. Using examples from the text and your own knowledge of social networks, argue for or against this theory.
