Week11: Reading scholarship


Article by Bellar et al. (2013) studies religious-oriented Internet memes in a framework of participatory culture and lived religion. Researchers apply visual and narrative analysis in online observation to study three specific areas: meme construction, use of humor to frame religious discourse and audience reception. They find that memes can change dominate religion-related discourses or stereotypes by reinforce them challenge them. Future areas of investigation are also directed: pay attention to context, intertextuality, comparative work and emotive discourse and analyze memes as essentialized religion.

Their study is especially helpful to my research in terms of the framework, analysis method and investigation direction. Buddhist styled youths memes is popular on social media in China, there are high participatory in its consumption and production. Moreover, Buddhist styled youths memes is related to Buddhism but made by atheists so it can be considered as “lived religion” according to the case study of “advice God”. Thus, their framework is valuable to my study. I will analyze both text and image to inquire life attitude and identity of Buddhist styled youths, so visual and narrative analysis suits my study. Finally, since the Buddhist styled youths memes are participate culture, I need to pay attention to the context and audience reception. I will analysis the comments by creators and audiences on the website where these memes are posted.

Aguilar et al. (2017) category religious memes into six common genres based on their structural similarities and features styles of the way religion is brought into discourse. They also propose five common frames of religious memes according the sense-making process of religion in those memes. They conclude three common characteristics of live religion: individualization, flexibility, and heterodoxy.
Their study is helpful to my research in its description of frames of religious memes and characteristics of live religion. Buddhist styled youths memes use religious trope frame and promoting religion frame by its definition. Furthermore, Buddhist styled youths has the characteristics of individualization, flexibility, and heterodoxy: different people have personal interpretations of the concept of Buddhist styled youths; Buddhist styled youths has positive or negative meanings in different contexts; youths identified as “Buddhist styled youths” are not religious.


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  1. Soup Twin-12018年11月20日 09:11

    Both article you note in this study are very relevant here It will be important to state more clearly what concept or category specifically you draw from each study and how this applies to your own. You provides some broad comments but providing more specific explanation and examples from your meme will strengthen your argument.

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Bro, just let it go.

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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 crat...
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