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Memes in digital culture / Limor Shifman.

By: Shifman, Limor, 1974- [author.].

Contributor(s): IEEE Xplore (Online Service) [distributor.] | MIT Press [publisher.].

Material type: materialTypeLabel

BookSeries: MIT Press essential knowledge series: Publisher: Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press, [2014]Distributor: [Piscataqay, New Jersey] : IEEE Xplore, [2013]Description: 1 PDF (216 pages).Content type: text Media type: electronic Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780262317696.Subject(s): Social evolution

| Memes

| Culture diffusion

| Internet -- Social aspects

| Memetics

Contents:

Introduction -- A telegraphic biography of a conceptual troublemaker -- When memes go digital -- Defining Internet memes -- Memes versus virals -- Unpacking viral and memetic success -- Meme genres -- May the excessive force be with you: memes as political participation -- When Internet memes go global -- Future directions for Internet meme research.

Summary: In December 2012, the exuberant video "Gangnam Style" became the first YouTube clip to be viewed more than one billion times. Thousands of its viewers responded by creating and posting their own variations of the video--"Mitt Romney Style," "NASA Johnson Style," "Egyptian Style," and many others. "Gangnam Style" (and its attendant parodies, imitations, and derivations) is one of the most famous examples of an Internet meme: a piece of digital content that spreads quickly around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience. In this book, Limor Shifman investigates Internet memes and what they tell us about digital culture. Shifman discusses a series of well-known Internet memes -- including "Leave Britney Alone," the pepper-spraying cop, LOLCats, Scumbag Steve, and Occupy Wall Street's "We Are the 99 Percent." She offers a novel definition of Internet memes: digital content units with common characteristics, created with awareness of each other, and circulated, imitated, and transformed via the Internet by many users. She differentiates memes from virals; analyzes what makes memes and virals successful; describes popular meme genres; discusses memes as new modes of political participation in democratic and nondemocratic regimes; and examines memes as agents of globalization. Memes, Shifman argues, encapsulate some of the most fundamental aspects of the Internet in general and of the participatory Web 2.0 culture in particular. Internet memes may be entertaining, but in this book Limor Shifman makes a compelling argument for taking them seriously.

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Includes bibliographical references and index.

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In December 2012, the exuberant video "Gangnam Style" became the first YouTube clip to be viewed more than one billion times. Thousands of its viewers responded by creating and posting their own variations of the video--"Mitt Romney Style," "NASA Johnson Style," "Egyptian Style," and many others. "Gangnam Style" (and its attendant parodies, imitations, and derivations) is one of the most famous examples of an Internet meme: a piece of digital content that spreads quickly around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience. In this book, Limor Shifman investigates Internet memes and what they tell us about digital culture. Shifman discusses a series of well-known Internet memes -- including "Leave Britney Alone," the pepper-spraying cop, LOLCats, Scumbag Steve, and Occupy Wall Street's "We Are the 99 Percent." She offers a novel definition of Internet memes: digital content units with common characteristics, created with awareness of each other, and circulated, imitated, and transformed via the Internet by many users. She differentiates memes from virals; analyzes what makes memes and virals successful; describes popular meme genres; discusses memes as new modes of political participation in democratic and nondemocratic regimes; and examines memes as agents of globalization. Memes, Shifman argues, encapsulate some of the most fundamental aspects of the Internet in general and of the participatory Web 2.0 culture in particular. Internet memes may be entertaining, but in this book Limor Shifman makes a compelling argument for taking them seriously.

Central Library

Memes in digital culture / Limor Shifman.

By: Shifman, Limor, 1974- [author.].

Contributor(s): IEEE Xplore (Online Service) [distributor.] | MIT Press [publisher.].