The text explored social practices of propagating online “memes” as a dimension of cultural production and transmission. Knobel and Lankshear Defines memes like “(...) contagious patterns of “cultural information” that get passed from mind to mind and directly generate and shape the mindsets and significant forms of behavior and actions of a social group. Memes include such things as popular tunes, catchphrases, clothing fashions, architectural slyles, ways of doing things, icons, jingles, and the like”.
The current interest in memes and contemporary conceptual and theoretical development of the idea dates back to ideas advanced by the geneticist Richard Dawkins in 1976. In his book The selfish Gene, Dawkins proposed a substantial evolutionary model of cultural development and change grouned in the replication of ideas, knowledge, and other cultural information through imitation and transfer. His definition of “memes” posited actual biological changes in brain neurons when minds became infected with memes.
Dawkins (1976) identified three key characteristics of successful memes: fidelity, fecundity and longevity. Fidelity refers to qualities of the meme that enable it to be readily copied and passed from mind to mind relatively intact. Fecundity refers to the rate at with an idea or pattern is coppied and spread. And finally longevity assumes aoptimal conditions for a meme´s replication and innovation.
It is relatively recenty that the concept has been developed and accepted as having descriptive and explanatory power with respect to cultural development. Memes can be seen as a cultural phenomena and as new literacy practices, here we will try to consider what they might mean for literacy education and consequently, how memes operate in everyday life.
According to James Gee, affinity spaces are "characterized by the sharing of knowledge and expertise based on voluntary affiliations". Often but not always occurring online, affinity spaces have a goal of sharing knowledge or participating in a specific area, but informal learning is another outcome. Gee uses the concept of an affinity space to focus on learning, among various other features concerning learning in particular, affinty spaces instantiate participation, collaboration, distribution and dispersion of expertise, and relatedness.
The point is that the logic of new literacies embodies general features and qualities highlighted byGee´s account of affinity spaces. These features and qualities emphasize the relational and social aspects of any literacy practice and draw attention to various social and resource configurations within which and through which people participate and learn.
Talking about meme longevity, it certainly seems that the internet itself greatly facilitates it. The blogsphere, in particular, appears to be an ideal vehicle for transmitting memes, with weblogs now replacing email and discussion forums, as a primary way of spreading memes.
Three distinct patterns of characteristics are likely to contribute directly to each meme´s fecundity. These include:
• Some lelement of humor;
• A rich kind of intertextuality, such as wry cross-references to different everyday and popular culture events, icons or phenomena;
• Anomalous juxtapositions, usually of images.
Most of the memes in our pool seem to appeal to and draw on the creative energies of people who enjoy playful, absurdist ideas carrying little serious content and who enjoy homorous ideas carrying serious content which can be considered to be social critique and commentary. Wry and satiric humor is used to good effect in the memes that serve social critique, criticism or commentary purposes withing this data pool. Susan Blackmore, a prominent mmeticist argues that the “effective transmission of memes depends critically on human preferences, attentiom, emotions and desire”.
With respect to literacy education in schools, the social dimension of meming translates into focussing on practices that are larger than reading and writting, and which can be, ccording to the text, “captured by means of distinguishing between “big L” Literacies and “little l” literacies. The difference is that:
“Literacy, with “big L”, refers to making meaning in ways that are tied directly to life and to being the world. That is, whenever we use language we are making some sort of significant or socially recognizable “move” that is inextricably tied to someone bringing into being or realizing some element or aspect of their world. This means that literacy, with a “small l”, describes the actual processes or reading, writing, viewing, listening, manipulating images and sounds, etc., making connections between different ideas, and using words and symbols that are part of these larger, more embodied Literacy practices“.
A “big L” conception of new Literacies recognizes that everyday life is often amplified through the participation of and interaction with people one may never meet and, moreover, that in online spaces this interaction and participation may occur in ways never before possible.It also envolves people deciding how they will choose to read or interpret a meme.
When memes are examined as Literacy practices it is possible to see that they involve much more than simply passing on or adding to writen or visual texts or information. Rather, they are tied directly to ways or interacting with others, to meaning making, and to ways of being, knowing, learning and doing.
The importance of teachers having a “big L” Literacy mindset on memes can not be over-emphasized. Understading succesful online memes can contribute much to identifying the limitation of narrow conceptions of literacy and new technologies classrooms. It can also help with understanding new forms of social participation and influence in everyday life.
Meming is also a fruitful practice for educators to focus on when thinking about new forms of social participation and civic action in the wake of widespread acess to the internet and involvement in increasingly dispersed social networks. For example, memes can be used in classrooms to promote discussions bout each meme´s contagious qualities, the ideas they convey and why, who created each meme and how it has been dispersed. These can be dynamic resources for developing informed points of view on a range of social issues.
Lilian S.
references
http://www.webartigos.com/articles/3050/1/A-Educacao-E-As-Novas-Tecnologias/pagina1.html
http://www.atica.com.br/entrevistas
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