This document contains everything relating to the history, evolution and introduction of memes to the political realm. It looks at the types of memes, the impact of memes and how they correlate and interact on the world and political stages.
28th September 2021
Fall Semester
POLI 3546 Social Media and Politics
Professor Scott Pruysers
Week Four
Week 4: Memes and User Generated Content (UGC)
IMPORTANT = No class on Thursday because of Truth and Reconciliation Public holiday
Goals for today's class
● Examine user generated content (UCG)/user-generated media (UGM)
● Explore memes
- Why do we create them ?
- Why do we engage with them?
- What do memes mean ?
Memes
● Memes have their roots in evolutionary biology
● The term was first coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The selfish
Gene(1976)
- Here he defined memes as small cultural units of transmission, analogues to
games, which are spread from person to person by copying or imitation.
- Memes are therefore viral and can evolve through natural selection; they do so
by Variation, Mutation, Adaptation and competition.
- It's the survival of the fittest only the most popular ones survive
● Writing about the longevity of memes Dawkins noted that they can outlive their creator
● Meme Complex or memplex: a series of interconnected memes reproduce together
and contribute to each other's survival. E.g Christmas
● Memes like virus want to reproduce in order to extend their longevity their protest songs
- Like viruses memes need a host (Humans) to reproduce
- Unlike viruses, humans have agency in the transmission of memes
Meme pool: similar to the gene pool - the sum total of all memes (units of culture) that can be
transmitted
➢ Memetrics - How cultural information evolve and are distributed
➢ We can define internet memes as “a piece of digital content that spreads quickly
around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience.”
- Memes can take a number of different forms- images, gifts, short videos, etc
- First ever internet memes
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