Memetics, a field of study developed from the 80s onwards, is often accused of trespassing in fields such as psychology or sociology, attempting to replace well established and coherent analytical tools and models with half-baked and insufficiently scientific notions. In academic circles the “meme concept”, whilst having its dedicated supporters, has been viewed with suspicion by many, derision by some, and outright hostility by not a few. You can even go to websites that offer to generate memes for you! The meme has certainly achieved a vibrant presence in popular consciousness. Anyone who spends any amount of time surfing the internet will almost certainly have come across examples of that rather disreputable phenomenon, the “internet meme”, and marketing agencies, ever on the look-out for new ways to enter a customer’s psyche, have been fleet of foot in using them as tools in their viral marketing campaigns.
Preparing for this article, I googled the word “meme” and generated 78,000,000 results! Looking back on 2013, the BBC published an article on-line listing its selection of the leading memes of the past year.
0 kommentar(er)
