Logics: The Fundamentals of Memetic Participation | The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media | MIT Press Scholarship Online (2024)

FAQs

What are the five logics of memes? ›

Multimodality refers to the way memes mix together different media, from still images to audio, video, and text. It is the first of five “logics” that Milner discerns in memes. The other four logics are reappropriation, resonance, collectivism, and spread.

Coined by the British evolutionist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), a meme is a unit of culture—such as “tunes, ideas, catch‐phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches.” In humans, memes have supposedly taken over much of the evolutionary burden of the traditional units of ...

Because they can take the form of images, symbols, text, videos, or GIFs, they can be as short as a single image or phrase and as long as a multi-minute video with an elaborate narrative. Some memes have short-lived bursts of popularity on social media, while others endure for years.

Dawkins conceived of memes as the cultural parallel to biological genes and considered them, in a manner similar to “selfish” genes, as being in control of their own reproduction and thus serving their own ends.

Criticisms. Critics contend that some of the proponents' assertions are "untested, unsupported or incorrect." Most of the history of memetic criticism has been directed at Dawkins' earlier theory of memetics framed in The Selfish Gene.

The word “meme” comes from the Greek mimema, meaning something that has been “imitated.” According to Britannica, the word was first introduced by Richard Dawkins, a British biologist, in his book The Selfish Gene; his intention was for “meme” to sound similar to "gene.” In his book, Dawkins makes a direct connection ...

Richard Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and writer. Dawkins himself has stated that his political views are left-leaning. However, many of Dawkins's political statements have created controversy among left-wing and atheist communities.

Although Richard Dawkins invented the term meme and developed meme theory, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past.

Gifs and memes are very similar. The only difference is that gifs are animated and move, while memes are usually static. Recently though, videos, gifs and images have all been used to make memes.

Yes, you usually can use a meme on social media, as long as you fall within fair use guidelines. Be careful if using a meme in a more permanent or fixed format if you aren't positive that you're utilizing the “fair use” doctrine of defense correctly (sometimes, it's as simple as who gets caught.

Are memes a good form of communication? ›

Memes provide a unique way to communicate complex emotions and feelings, making them an important part of the modern communication landscape. They are often used to express humor, sarcasm, and irony, but they can also be used to convey more serious messages.

Memes do not age well – most of them evaporate within days, but the points they make can leave a lasting effect on society and politics. In countries with censorship, memes can obtain an even bigger value – as people throw them into public discourse to send resistant messages and oppose corruption.

: the study of memes. Memetics sees ideas as a kind of virus, sometimes propagating in spite of truth and logic. Its maxim is: Beliefs that survive aren't necessarily true, rules that survive aren't necessarily fair and rituals that survive aren't necessarily necessary.

They're images with a language of their own that really are worth a thousand words. On platforms where brevity is key to getting your message across, they can be a valuable tool. Done well, memes can be a great way to drive engagement to your social media pages.

Copyright law gives original creators of memes, or the owners of the media used in the underlying meme, the exclusive rights of reproduction, modification, distribution, performance, and display.

The Five (5) Common Logical Connectives or Operators

Logical Negation. Logical Conjunction (AND) Logical Disjunction (Inclusive OR) Logical Implication (Conditional) Logical Biconditional (Double Implication)

Characteristics of memes include their susceptibility to parody, their use of intertextuality, their propagation in a viral pattern, and their evolution over time.

To be replicated, a meme must pass successfully through four subsequent stages: 1) assimilation by an individual, who thereby becomes a host of the meme; 2) retention in that individual's memory; 3) expression by the individual in language, behavior or another form that can be perceived by others; 4) transmission of ...

The rules are simple. Each round, a rotating judge plays a Photo Card and everyone else plays a Caption Card to complete the meme. The judge decides the funniest pairing, and whoever played the winning Caption Card wins the round. Lather, rinse, repeat.