Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA10343 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 8 May 2000 16:45:42 +0100 Message-ID: <39169B70.1B8C261@mediaone.net> Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 11:48:17 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Central questions of memetics References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB154@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Vincent Campbell wrote:
> Interesting comments, although I wonder if you mean journalism as a
> profession, or journalism as an academic discipline is unscientific (or
> both)?
It could be both or not. It just depends on the person. Some people are very
good at verbalizing the principles by which they act in their environment,
others just do it.
>
>
> It's not that you would be necessarily wrong to make that point, however you
> meant it, but I think one of the uses of memetics is in bridging that gap
> between hard and social sciences, not in undermining all the work that's
> gone on so far in journalism/media studies. There is a significant amount
> of work being done in journalism studies that is trying its best to apply
> scientific processes to the analysis of journalism and its role in society.
> My own personal interest, at the moment, is trying to uncover why all the
> varied models of media effects are so unsatisfactory in explaining, let
> alone predicting media effects. I'm still in the early stages of exploring
> memetics in this light, so I'm really unsure of where it is going to go at
> the moment, but I have a feeling that memetics offers some kind of solution
> to the process problem of media effects- in other words, we all seem to
> intuitively accept that the media have effects on audiences, but we have yet
> to isolate any obvious causal processes (that is if you actually look across
> lots of different research and not just at any one study) with all the major
> theories (e.g. hypodermics, agenda-setting, cultivation, encoding/decoding
> etc. etc.) having evident flaws.
>
You have indeed chosen the most difficult part of media studies, and I'm not
sure there is a good way to study it because ultimately it has to be done as a
study of natural behavior, and its very, very difficult to separate out the
non-media effects in such a situation. But why do you think that memetics -
whatever it is - would be a help? My hunch is no because it really wants to
isolate behaviors instead of seeing them in context. I suspect it appeals to the
academic mentality of wanting to produce neatly defined lab experiments. But
perhaps you see something more?
>
> Vincent Campbell
>
> > ----------
> > From: Richard Brodie
> > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Sent: Monday, May 8, 2000 3:20 pm
> > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Subject: RE: Central questions of memetics
> >
> > Chuck Palson wrote:
> >
> > <<I don't see how positing memes as having a life of their
> > own helps out - or could. So if you think so, maybe you can clarify why
> > the
> > concept of memes would help.>>
> >
> > You're not the first to shoot down the philosophical biases of the notable
> > writers in the field. Many have taken issue with Blackmore's Buddhist
> > leanings (although if you really believe memes spread chiefly because they
> > are useful then you should be the first to believe that Buddhism must be
> > among the world's most useful ideas, with over 300 million adherents,
> > almost
> > a third as useful as the Super Bowl) and Dawkins's anti-religious bias.
> > Both
> > Dawkins and Blackmore, however, make some very valuable theoretical points
> > in their writings. Dawkins named the meme, for which you can love or hate
> > him, and generated good controversy with his essay "viruses of the mind."
> > Blackmore has some very interesting theory about coevolution of the brain
> > and culture. Many of the criticisms of her book are answered in my earlier
> > book, but if The Meme Machine is your intro to memetics then you may not
> > have that advantage.
> >
> > I appreciate your honesty in the repeated use of "as far as I can see."
> > The
> > concept of differential survival of replicators is a difficult and
> > unintuitive one. The spread of Darwin's theory has suffered at the hands
> > of
> > the "argument from personal incredulity" for 150 years and still does. One
> > reason I think memes spread is because they fit in with people's existing
> > belief systems. That's why Grandpa doesn't use the Internet even though it
> > might be useful for eliminating repetitive behaviors and so on. People
> > have
> > been coming to me weekly since Virus of the Mind was published with
> > similar
> > questions and arguments (see question #3 in the Memetics FAQ at
> > www.memecentral.com/index.htm#FAQ ).
> >
> > As for journalism being a science, I am not familiar with any scientific
> > experiments that have been done in the field and, as would I'm sure many
> > other subscribers to this list, would love to hear about them. When you
> > say
> > that the reasons are "well known"---well, so is Santa Claus. That doesn't
> > make it science. Having been a journalist myself I judge the field to be
> > extraordinarily unscientific.
> >
> > Not that memetics has yet done itself proud in the way of
> > experimentation...
> >
> > Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.memecentral.com
> >
> >
> > ===============================================================
> > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
> >
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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