This research utilizes a big-measure quantitative research to disclose architectural designs off web sites memes, emphasizing dos forces one to join her or him together: the quiddities each and every meme friends plus the simple top features of the fresh larger memetic industries. Using posts and you can community analysis of 1013 meme instances (along with video clips, photos, and you can text), we talk about memes’ common quiddity products and you can general provides, therefore the ways it relate genuinely to each other. All of our findings show that (a) higher cohesiveness away from meme group try in the a heightened uniqueness of their universal services; and (b) the concreteness away from meme quiddities are regarding the cohesiveness and you can individuality. We discuss the effects of those conclusions toward comprehension of internet sites memes and you can participatory people.
Websites memes, bits of digital stuff you to definitely bequeath inside the websites in almost any iterations, enjoys recently sparked scholarly attention across several fields (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012 ; Milner, 2012 ; Shifman, 2013 ). While most training get an effective qualitative method to examining the cultural meaning of memes, regarding following the post i utilize large-scale decimal studies to help you show certain laws and you will regularities underpinning which evidently crazy industries. Memes are part of brand new humdrum “internet diet” of numerous Individuals, casually appearing during the visits to help you platforms including Youtube, Facebook, and you can Reddit. Yet the memetic dynamic is actually from getting trivial. Needed different users internationally to execute for the concert, creating and you may dispersing stuff in the several distinctions collectively divergent platforms, while maintaining the attraction and you may prominent attributes.
Families and you will Sites of Internet Memes: The partnership Anywhere between Cohesiveness, Individuality, and you can Quiddity Concreteness
So it paper aims at losing white about how precisely Web sites memes remain tied up along with her even with the dynamic and you may playful contexts out of articulation. Within the basic region i put the backdrop in regards to our journey of the reflecting the stress between your popular features of individual meme times, meme families, and the entire memetic system. We define internet sites memes as the categories of electronic textual equipment written and given by of a lot people, which happen to be bound together with her by a couple forces: (a) a contributed quiddity which is specific to every nearest and dearest, constituting its only one essence; free online dating sites for Dating over 60 singles and you can (b) so much more general characteristics from means, articles, and you will position that draw on exhibitions of the “meme people.” Building on this subject abstract change, we contained in the next region brand new tries guiding this study: to add a summary and you will investigation of your own prevalent quiddities and you may universal popular features of sites memes also to research brand new relationships between them. Particularly, we want to take a look at the connection between the cohesiveness regarding meme group (we.elizabeth., brand new the quantity that times are like each other), the latest uniqueness of the generic features underpinning them, therefore the concreteness of quiddities binding them. To address these requirements, i working articles studies to the a wide sample out-of meme era, then added mathematical and you may circle analysis. On concluding point, i speak about exactly how our very own studies, in line with the theoretic difference between quiddities and standard features, falls out light for the dualities away from “networked selves” constituting contemporary digital countries.
Meme Families and Joining Quiddities
The expression meme try coined of the Richard Dawkins on the Selfish Gene ( 1976 ) to spell it out brief systems out of culture one give off individual person by copying otherwise simulation. Centered on it very first conceptualization, memes tends to be abstract records, texts otherwise methods. Memetic diffusion is dependent on a combination of repetition and you can variation: Since the power to replicate memes in almost any contexts was important on their success, re-manufacturing must be versatile adequate to adjust to modifying facts. So it state of flux leads to a propensity to describe memes only retrospectively, once they keeps propagated. Therefore, by way of example, the original four notes away from Beethoven’s 5th Symphony was indeed identified as a good meme merely after they moved to numerous elements of new community and was indeed provided from inside the a wide array of social artifacts comprising advertising, kid’s coding, and you can movies (Blackmore, 1999 ).