Understanding Media: The Extensions of Memes Rob Safar

We hear two songs - they are different versions of the same song. Pointing out their differences is easy - but what is it that makes them the same? The meme is the relationship between two content items that make them 'the same', whether that is the same song, the same picture, the same act or even sub-items within any content like the same melody, the same house, the same character and so on.

What do we mean when we talk about meme mediation? To what phenomenon, exactly, do we refer? This episode is a more in-depth look at how the concept of memes works with media. Thanks to Falk’s feedback on the last episode, this one gets straight to business and discusses how the dichotomy of semantics versus structure relates to the dichotomy of memes versus media. Here we look at an introduction to the qualities that a good meme needs (the same as what makes for a successful gene) as well as solidifying the analogy. Later in the episode, we explore some of the implications of meme theory essentially being allegorical.

Welcome to Understanding Media: The Extensions of Memes. Thanks for visiting! Here we will be discussing, in short, a combining of the works of Marshall McLuhan and Richard Dawkins (to name only the progenitors of the two crucial ideas here). We are seeking to establish a theory of media that accounts for the critiques of McLuhan and operates using the best analytical tools we now have at our disposal. This project is a kind of open source academic study, where your comments and inputs will help to mould this theoretical framework as it takes shape. Ultimately, I am seeking to demonstrate that meme theory is a useful framework that addresses and resolves a number of unanswered questions in the field of new media study.