Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA07156 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 28 Apr 2000 11:18:16 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB12B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Introductions Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 11:16:24 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hello to everyone on this mailing list,
My name is Vincent Campbell, and I am a lecturer in the Department of Film
and Media Studies at the University of Stirling. I've joined this mailing
list because having come across the concept of memes through numerous
popular science books, and I have become increasingly convinced that
memetics may provide some extremely useful ideas for media studies, and vice
versa for that matter.
I do not share the habitus-like territoriality expressed by the social
scientists as described in the recent Journal of Memetics article. I
personally feel that in the area of social science/humanities that media
studies occupies, memetics could offer a useful framework within which to
place debates about things like media power and media effects.
I have long been very skeptical of supposed empirical evidence of media
effects. Some 70 years or so of media effects research has failed to
identify a clear causal process of media effects, and a wide spectrum of
theories have emerged, some supported more widely than others. What most
effects theories fall down on is the question of why audience members differ
in their responses to media content, for example, why in 1938 did some
Americans run to the hills believing the Martians were invading, whilst
others stayed in their homes listening to Orson Welles' radio version of
'The War of the Worlds'. Most effects theories concentrate on either
features of the media themselves (e.g. the "insidious" nature of television
disseminating dangerous material into people's homes- but if the "power"
lies with the medium why aren't we all affected?), or on aspects of audience
psychology (from zombie-like masses at one extreme, and relativist at
another). Memetics, as far as my currently limited understanding of the
concept allows, seems to me to offer a potentially new way of thinking about
the processes of media effects which is more holistic than existing theories
of media.
From a memetics point of view, media studies offers help in the area of
pinning down questions of meme phenotypes, as the media are often referred
to explicitly or implicitly as central sites of memes. If organisms are
phenotypes for genes, then are books, newspapers, TV programmes films,
websites etc. phenotypes for memes? If so, then memeticists need to tap
into the knowledge that has been built up in media studies about how these
vehicles emerge, the forms they take, human responses to them and so on.
This is only an initial idea, which after a bit more thought I hope to work
out a bit more clearly, but I have been struck by the absence (so far) of
media scholars in the various material that has been published/debated etc.
regarding memetics. If anyone is aware of academic work being carried by
media scholars on memetics I would be grateful for any information about
that. Otherwise, I hope I can contribute to this list in some way, shape or
form.
Vincent Campbell
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