Challenge

Analyze and respond to 'Memes in Digital Culture' by Limor Shifman

This project is part of the Literature Review, wherein I had to read 'Memes in Digital Culture' by Limor Shifman, write a literature review analyzing it and respond to it in an interactive manner.

Analysis

Memes - A medium of polyvocal digital discourse

The concepts of authorship and originality are questioned continuously and combined in Limor Shifman’s ‘Memes in Digital Culture,’ where she attempts to “bridge the gap between academic and popular discourse about memes.”

The term ‘meme’ was first introduced in biologist Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book ‘The Selfish Gene.’ Shifman defines Internet memes as “(a) a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and stance, which (b) were created with an awareness of each other, and (c) were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users.”

Shifman examines the communicative roles memes like LOLcats, Planking, and Gangnam Style serve in digital culture which embodies the many embedded aspects of Web 2.0 participatory culture (websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability for end users).

Contrasting ‘viral’ from memes based on variability, Shifman states that virals become memes when ordinary Internet users alter the original content for their communicative purposes. This minor difference is where the power in memetic content lies. When ordinary people interpose their perspective into their version of the meme, social discourse begins to take place; in an era marked by “network individualism,” memes allow people to express both their uniqueness and their connectivity simultaneously. The uploaders are the medium and also the message.

While memes may appear to be unimportant bits of mainstream culture, Shifman demonstrates they are worthy of further consideration because they provide a democratic avenue for polyvocal digital discourse.

Design Response

Chain Tag