In this new book Limor Shifman examines the current phenomenon of memes and looks at their history and spread in an attempt to explain their impact in the analysis of digital culture. “Memes” are small units of culture, such as songs, fashions and catch phrases that spread from person to person by copying and imitation; Richard Dawkins first mentioned them in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. Memes can be parodies of popular clips that are copied by amateurs and flow from one platform (such as a television news story) to another (like YouTube or Twitter): examples include “Gangnam Style”, LOLCats and “Leave Britney Alone”. Memes change as they spread over time and across the Internet and reflect social attitudes and form part of the sharing culture of Facebook and YouTube.
Limor Shifman is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an expert on popular cultures especially Internet-based humour such as online joke-memes. The author states this book is designed to act as a bridge between academic and popular discussion about memes, and she argues that, while memes appear trivial, they play an important part in cultural events and are worthy of further research.
Advances in software for photoshopping, the use of webcams and editing software have helped the spread of memes. In Chapter 7 there is a look at popular genres such as “reaction photoshops”, photo fads (i.e. planking), flash mobs and the ever popular lip-synching. Misheard lyric, fake movie trailers, image macros (pictures overlaid with text such as LOLCats), animal advice and rage comics complete the nine general meme genres that have been identified. The author suggests that by identifying the different types of memes it can help to map the “complex universe of user-generated content” to analyse Internet memes and possibly lead to further sociological studies. Political memes are discussed in Chapter 8; they have three main functions – as a form of persuasion, as “grassroots” action and to bring a topic into the public domain for general discussion and protest. Political memes are often humorous and lightweight, but many have a serious undertone (such as the Occupy Wall Street 2011 protest against social and economic inequalities).
Memes in Digital Culture is a recent addition to the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series that provides concise books on the latest topics in culture, science and technical areas. It is written in a readable style, and the content is interesting and informative. The book includes notes and a list of further reading and will stimulate the readers’ interest in this fascinating topic. While it is not intended as a detailed academic analysis of the topic, it provides a good introduction and stimulates discussion of the topic; I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand this social phenomena.
