[Air-L] Meme Tracking

Heidi Huntington huntington.heidi at gmail.com
Sat Jun 10 13:22:58 PDT 2017


Internet memes borrow their name from Dawkins' invented term, but really
are a quite different thing.

In the 2014 book Memes in Digital Culture, published by MIT Press, Limor
Shifman discusses the problematic history of the term and specifically
defines Internet memes as a separate phenomenon rooted in participatory
media culture. Between Shifman's work and others', there is published
scholarship to support the use of the term "meme" to refer to the Internet
practice without necessarily subscribing to Dawkins' concept.

As was mentioned in this thread, those of us who study Internet memes
ultimately use the term "memes" because that is the term the people who
make them use.


On Jun 10, 2017 1:30 PM, "David Stodolsky" <dss at secureid.net> wrote:


> On 10 Jun 2017, at 21:15, Giorgia Castellano <giorgia.castellano at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> "As the refs below show, the term meme has no validity.
> Rumor propagation and the spread of innovative ideas has a long history
of study in social science."
>
> Well, memes are not important only if you have never set foot on the
internet in the last 10 years. They are all talking about internet memes
which have almost nothing in commong with biology-derived memes. Those blog
entries are from 2010 which in Internet years counts as 100 years of
evolution.
>
> so http://imgur.com/gallery/PZRWvjd <http://imgur.com/gallery/PZRWvjd>
>
>

There are no “biology-derived memes” and there are no “memes”.
The concept is nonsense constructed for ideological reasons from whole
cloth by Dawkins.
Please read the links before you respond, unless you wish to confirm you
have no wish to understand the topic of discussion.

Discussion here is supposed to support science.
If someone posted they wished to study the effect of angels on Internet
posting frequency, few would consider it a valid input.
When you use the term “meme” unquoted, you are promoting religion, not
science.


dss


> Cheers,
>
>
>
>
> Giorgia Castellano
> M.A. Hamburg University
> Erasmus Mundus in Journalism, Media and Globalisation
>
> 2017-06-10 21:06 GMT+02:00 David Stodolsky <dss at secureid.net <mailto:
dss at secureid.net>>:
> Once you fall into Newspeak, like “meme,” you have already sacrificed
your rationality on the altar of market fundamentalism:
>
> http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2011/07/artificial-ape.html <
http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2011/07/artificial-ape.html>
>
> http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2010/12/memes-selfish-genes-and-darwinian.html
<http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2010/12/memes-selfish-genes-and-darwinian.html>
>
> http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2010/02/what-darwin-got-wrong.html <
http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2010/02/what-darwin-got-wrong.html>
>
> http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2016/02/richard-selfish-gene-dawkins-has.html <
http://cosmism.blogspot.dk/2016/02/richard-selfish-gene-dawkins-has.html>
>
>
> Margaret-thatcher: "And, you know, there's no such thing as society.
There are individual men and women and there are families" in an interview
in Women's Own in 1987
> https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-quotes
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-quotes>
>
> “Meme” is the same idea expressed by a zoologist, who is out of his depth
in social science.
> He continues to be a fanatical opponent of group selection, when it comes
to genes.
>
>
> As the refs below show, the term meme has no validity.
> Rumor propagation and the spread of innovative ideas has a long history
of study in social science.
>
>
> dss
>
> > On 8 Jun 2017, at 15:05, Thomas Ball <xtc283 at gmail.com <mailto:
xtc283 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > A couple of years ago IARPA (https://www.iarpa.gov/ <
https://www.iarpa.gov/>) opened up a thread
> > exploring the use of open source indicators (OSIs) for prediction and
> > forecasting of unknown potential future events and threats. OSIs are
> > basically text and keywords. In reaching out to the IARPA organizer of
the
> > discussion, links were requested to papers on the topic. The link below
was
> > his response. Note that this IARPA thread came shortly after the
so-called
> > 'Arab Spring.' Thus, the papers reflect thinking of that vintage.
> >
> > D12PC00337 OR D12PC00285 OR D12PC00347 - Google Scholar
> > <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=D12PC00337+OR+
D12PC00285+OR+D12PC00347 <https://scholar.google.com/
scholar?q=D12PC00337+OR+D12PC00285+OR+D12PC00347>>
> >
> >
> > D12PC00337 OR D12PC00285 OR D12PC00347 - Google Scholar
> >
> >
> >
> > <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=D12PC00337+OR+
D12PC00285+OR+D12PC00347 <https://scholar.google.com/
scholar?q=D12PC00337+OR+D12PC00285+OR+D12PC00347>>
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 4:33 AM, Tanis Grandison <tanis.grandison at me.com
<mailto:tanis.grandison at me.com>>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice (and useful reading )
on
> >> tracking Memes.
> >> Specifically, I am wondering if there is a way I can take a meme and
look
> >> at how it has spread and been shared on different social media?
> >>
> >> I wouldn’t be doing it in real time, more looking back at significant
> >> events and how political memes transcended networks and flowed through
> >> social media.
> >>
> >> Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >> Tanis Grandison
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org> mailing
list
> >> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
<http://aoir.org/>
> >> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/
<http://listserv.aoir.org/>
> >> listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org <http://air-l-aoir.org/>
> >>
> >> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> >> http://www.aoir.org/ <http://www.aoir.org/>
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org> mailing
list
> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org <
http://aoir.org/>
> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/
listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org <http://listserv.aoir.org/
listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org>
> >
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/ <http://www.aoir.org/>
>
> David Stodolsky, PhD                   Institute for Social Informatics
> Tornskadestien 2, st. th., DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark
> dss at socialinformatics.org <mailto:dss at socialinformatics.org>
Skype/Twitter: davidstodolsky
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org <mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org> mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org <
http://aoir.org/>
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/
listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org <http://listserv.aoir.org/
listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org>
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/ <http://www.aoir.org/>

David Stodolsky, PhD                   Institute for Social Informatics
Tornskadestien 2, st. th., DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark
dss at socialinformatics.org          Skype/Twitter: davidstodolsky



_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/
listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/



More information about the Air-L mailing list