Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA07703 (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 15:02:25 +0100 Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 07:01:25 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Introductions To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <390999B5.5ACF963A@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en]C-PBI-NC404 (Win95; I) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: ja,en References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB12B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Vincent,
Welcome! :-)
> 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.
With your background, I am sure that you will be able to add a
lot to the discussion of memetics.
> 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?
The genotype-phenotype distinction in genetics is not as useful
in memetics, because, by and large, transmission happens
differently. In genetics, transmission is from genotype to
genotype, through replication of DNA. The phenotype is the outer
manifestation of the genotype. However, in memetics, transmission
normally takes place through imitation of the outward expression.
The phrase, "Play it again, Sam," is transmitted, not through the
film, "Casablanca", but through imitation of people outside of
the theater. As you know, the phrase in the movie is, "Play it,
Sam, for old times' sake."
Concrete media, -- books, films, tapes, CDs, etc. -- are more
like genotypes than phenotypes. Like DNA, they may be copied
directly, not just through their expressions.
> 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.
Indeed. :-)
> I have long been very skeptical of supposed empirical evidence of media
> effects.
I would be interested in your comments about the Werther effect,
particularly in the eponymic case of Goethe's book.
Best regards,
Bill
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