Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

How to Do Things With Words

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

In December 2012, the exuberant video "Gangnam Style" became the first YouTube clip to be viewed more than one billion times. Thousands of its viewers responded by creating and posting their own variations of the video--"Mitt Romney Style," "NASA Johnson Style," "Egyptian Style," and many others. "Gangnam Style" (and its attendant parodies, imitations, and derivations) is one of the most famous examples of an Internet meme: a piece of digital content that spreads quickly around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience. In this book, Limor Shifman investigates Internet memes and what they tell us about digital culture. Shifman discusses a series of well-known Internet memes -- including "Leave Britney Alone," the pepper-spraying cop, LOLCats, Scumbag Steve, and Occupy Wall Street's "We Are the 99 Percent." She offers a novel definition of Internet memes: digital content units with common characteristics, created with awareness of each other, and circulated, imitated, and transformed via the Internet by many users. She differentiates memes from virals; analyzes what makes memes and virals successful; describes popular meme genres; discusses memes as new modes of political participation in democratic and nondemocratic regimes; and examines memes as agents of globalization. Memes, Shifman argues, encapsulate some of the most fundamental aspects of the Internet in general and of the participatory Web 2.0 culture in particular. Internet memes may be entertaining, but in this book Limor Shifman makes a compelling argument for taking them seriously.

Memes in Digital Culture

This paper re-examines the concept of “meme” in the context of digital culture. Defined as cultural units that spread from person to person, memes were debated long before the digital era. Yet the Internet turned the spread of memes into a highly visible practice, and the term has become an integral part of the netizen vernacular. After evaluating the promises and pitfalls of memes for understanding digital culture, I address the problem of defining memes by charting a communication-oriented typology of 3 memetic dimensions: content, form, and stance. To illustrate the utility of the typology, I apply it to analyze the video meme “Leave Britney Alone.” Finally, I chart possible paths for further meme-oriented analysis of digital content.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jcc4.12013

Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker

Launched in 2005 as a video-sharing website, YouTube has become an emblem of participatory culture. A central feature of this website is the dazzling number of derivative videos, uploaded daily by many thousands. Using the ‘meme’ concept as an analytic tool, this article aims at uncovering the attributes common to ‘memetic videos’ – popular clips that generate extensive user engagement by way of creative derivatives. Drawing on YouTube popularity-measurements and on user-generated playlists, a corpus of 30 prominent memetic videos was assembled. A combined qualitative and quantitative analysis of these videos yielded six common features: focus on ordinary people, flawed masculinity, humor, simplicity, repetitiveness and whimsical content. Each of these attributes marks the video as incomplete or flawed, thereby invoking further creative dialogue. In its concluding section, the article addresses the skyrocketing popularity of mimicking in contemporary digital culture, linking it to economic, social and cul...

/pdf/an-anatomy-of-a-youtube-meme-4hvdmuf4e3.pdf

An anatomy of a YouTube meme

In September 2010, a video titled “It Gets Better” was uploaded to YouTube, responding to suicides of gay teens who had suffered from homophobic bullying. Before long, thousands of Internet users added their own versions of the clip, creating a mass appeal to young people while simultaneously negotiating the norms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) collective identity. Conceptualizing this body of videos as an Internet meme, we examine the extent to which participants imitate or alter textual components presented in previous videos. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of 200 clips shows that in an arena ostensibly free of formal gatekeepers, participants tend to police themselves, toeing the line with conformist norms. We also identify domains of potential subversion, related not only to the content of the videos but mainly to the forms facilitated by digital media.

“It Gets Better”: Internet memes and the construction of collective identity

This article explores the workings of memes as cultural capital in web-based communities. A grounded analysis of 4chan’s /b/ board reveals three main formulations of memes as capital, delineating them as subcultural knowledge, unstable equilibriums, and discursive weapons. While the first formulation follows well-documented notions about subcultural knowledge as a basis for boundary work, the latter two focus on the dualities intrinsic to Internet memes. The contradiction between following conventions and supplying innovative content leads to memes’ configuration as unstable equilibriums, triggering constant conflict about their “correct” use. Paradoxically, this struggle highlights collective identity, as it keeps shared culture at the center of discussion. Similarly, when memes are used as jabs at the most intense points of arguments, they function simultaneously as signifiers of superior authoritative status and as reminders of common affinity. Thus, the dualities underpinning memes’ structure lead to ...

Limor Shifman

Papers

Memes in Digital Culture

Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker

An anatomy of a YouTube meme

“It Gets Better”: Internet memes and the construction of collective identity

Internet memes as contested cultural capital: The case of 4chan’s /b/ board