Week 10: Referring to Shifman

Shifman summarizes some elements of viral success and memetic success in his book Memes in digital culture. Participation is a feature of both viral and memetic success. Participation means "viral dissemination may be enhanced if people are encouraged not only to share a certain item, but also to carry out other activities related to it"(2014, p.72). When the concept of "Buddhist styled youths" memes got popular in social media, many users participate in expansion of the memes to "Buddhist styled" plus any occupation or identities such as "Buddhist styled employees", "Buddhist styled teachers", "Buddhist styled mothers".  "Many successful campaigns depend not only on sharing content but also on the active engagement of users in re-creating or appropriating items"(2014, p.72). The joint meaning creation becomes a campaign that everyone is contributing to the expansion of the "Buddhist styled" memes and crate new memes under this theme.
I will study and analyze "Buddhist styled youths" memes through this participation lens. As everyone's understanding of "Buddhist styled" has both similarities and differences, I will category "Buddhist styled" memes into different groups based on the different attitudes expressed by memes. For example, "Buddhist styled employees" has two versions. One shows a diligent and positive attitude but the other shows a lazy and negative attitude. I will group them into "diligent" group and "lazy" group separately. 


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  1. Soup Twin-12018年11月14日 13:39

    good reflection. You need to provide a few more details that discuss what these memes are encouraging individuals to participate in. please provide a more detailed discussion of the messages and images in 2 specific memes you are looking at and show how a specific kind of religious participation is understood as being encouraged here.

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