[Air-L] Meme Tracking
Thomas Ball
xtc283 at gmail.com
Tue Jun 13 03:48:46 PDT 2017
*"My idea of community is the one FIsh talks about..."*
Fish? Please clarify the reference.
Thank you,
Thomas Ball
On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 11:20 PM, fiona andf <fiona.andreallo at gmail.com>
wrote:
> re; Meme tracking.
> I am an inter-diciplinary digital visual culture scholar and I submitted my
> thesis a few weeks back focusing on digital memes and selfies(UTS, Sydney;
> 'The semeful sociability of digital memes'). I am interested in visual
> social interaction and communication in social media.
> In my thesis I relied heavily on Shiftman's work to investigate memes as
> what might be described a form of vernacular creativity (Burgess).
>
> I think this thread was originally about tracking digital memes so I want
> to go back to that. Milners( Supervised by Baym) thesis might be of
> interest when considering tracking as he investigated memes across a number
> of platforms. Many scholars have thought for a while that vernacular is
> based in the platform that the activity takes place. In my thesis I focused
> on the concept of digital meme communities in the context of evolved place
> and space in online contexts. ( my idea of community is the one Fish talks
> about)
>
> Shifman highlights that digital memes are always groups of content. So I
> guess what I am getting at is that you are considering tracking the
> movement of memes through online spaces then I think it would be essential
> to track groups and spreadability in some way rather then tracking a meme
> because the conversation is essentially part of the community the memes and
> to remove a meme from its context then also changes the meaning.
>
> Hope that is of some help when thinking about tracking digital memes.
>
> Fiona
>
> Fiona Andreallo
> Lecturer USYD
>
> On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 9:00 AM, Jean Burgess <je.burgess at qut.edu.au>
> wrote:
>
> > As the images posted to this list for the LOLs illustrate, these issues
> > are very well rehearsed among vernacular experts. But they are very well
> > rehearsed among scholars of internet culture as well.
> >
> > I second the recommendation to read Limor Shifman’s book on the subject,
> > and if nobody else posted it, see also the Culture Digitally Festival of
> > Memeology, which features many of the leading meme scholars
> > http://culturedigitally.org/festival-of-memeology/
> >
> > The “festival” includes “Memeology Festival 05. Memes as Ritual, Virals
> as
> > Transmission? In Praise of Blurry Boundaries” also by Limor Shifman,
> which
> > is a very short piece that covers many of these questions.
> > http://culturedigitally.org/2015/11/memeology-festival-05-
> > memes-as-ritual-virals-as-transmission-in-praise-of-blurry-boundaries/
> >
> >
> > On 12/6/17, 6:47 pm, "Air-L on behalf of Taylor-Smith, Ella" <
> > air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org on behalf of E.Taylor-Smith at napier.ac.uk
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > Hi all
> >
> > If we are interested in studying what people are doing on the
> Internet
> > (what they think they're doing etc.), then we can't ignore that people
> > share images -especially images with words in -that they call memes.
> > The books coming out of the Why We Post project take this line and
> are
> > rewarded with all sorts of insights about the contemporary use of memes
> in
> > various cultures. E.g. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-
> > post/discoveries/14-memes-have-become-the-moral-police-of-online-life
> >
> > Miller and Sinanan's book about Facebook use is a good place to start
> > Miller, D. & Sinanan, J. (2017). Visualising Facebook. London: UCL Press.
> > http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/visualising-facebook
> >
> > If we're interested in the relationship between Dawkins' ideas and
> the
> > concept of an internet meme, I have a couple of pointers that might help.
> > It seems to be that media scholars use the term meme to study how
> > content spreads across the Internet, by focusing on the content of the
> > content -virality, while virality is a metaphor -people do the spreading,
> > not the content.
> >
> > For Dawkins (in the meme) "the idea of purpose is only a metaphor"
> > (The Selfish Gene).
> >
> > When Godwin introduced the Internet meme idea, he seemed to be taking
> > this concept of virality in order to introduce a counter-meme (Godwin's
> Law
> > of Nazi Analogies). In this case, the meme's purpose is Godwin's purpose.
> > https://www.wired.com/1994/10/godwin-if-2/
> >
> > Many definitions of meme emphasise humour
> > e.g. “a piece of culture, typically a joke, which gains influence
> > through online transmission.”
> > Davison, P. (2012). The Language of Internet Memes. In M. Mandiberg
> > (ed.), The Social Media Reader (pp. 120–34), New York: New York
> University
> > Press
> >
> > If we lose our sense of humour while studying or discussing memes, we
> > will not be able to understand them at all.
> > Probably best not to underestimate the role of humour in any
> > communications, but especially online.
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > -Ella
> >
> > Dr Ella Taylor-Smith
> >
> > School of Computing
> > Edinburgh Napier University
> > 10 Colinton Road
> > Edinburgh, EH10 5DT
> >
> > Email: e.taylor-smith at napier.ac.uk
> >
> > http://www.iidi.napier.ac.uk/e.taylor-smith
> > http://about.me/EllaTaylorSmith
> > @EllaTasm
> >
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