From: Kate Distin (memes@distin.co.uk)
Date: Sun 27 Nov 2005 - 13:16:05 GMT
Given a similar task a few years ago - different audience, but memetics
similarly novel to them - I just took along lots of props that
demonstrated what I meant by "culture". This seemed to me the first
hurdle: if you're proposing memes as an explanation of how culture
evolves then you first have to give your audience a flavour of what's
involved in human culture and how we can see it changing all around us.
Obviously you'd target it to your particular audience. I like the
annoying ring tone and the neighbours accent ideas - to appeal to
students. It seemed to work well for me to take along concrete props
that you can actually show your audience, whether to listen to or look
at. You just need to pick other examples of things that as students you
do in fact see all around you: clothing fashions, songs, styles of
advertising on posters or flyers, popular drinks, "in" places to go.
Especially particularly popular or annoying ones, which will make your
audience go "AAAAhh - yes - I recognize that." Teacher trainers will
tell you that it's always good to start with your audience's existing
knowledge and work forwards from that. It gets them on your side from
the start, apart from anything else!
Or is there anything that you've observed in your time at Derby that's
noticeably changed while you've been there? Which again your audience
would recognize if you drew their attention to how it has changed? Maybe
changing fashions in drinks, venues, clothing, hair styles, societies,
TV programmes, accepted political views or whatever?
Hope it goes well!
Kate
> Hi all,
>
> I'm an undergraduate University student in Derby, England. As part of
> my coursework for the Philosophy of AI module I am studying, I am
> giving a presentation on memetics, which is an area of great interest
> to me.
>
> The presentation is to a group of students who don't have the first
> idea about memes, so I have to keep it basic. I'll be talking about
> Dawkins's introduction of the concept, giving views from various
> people including Blackmore, Dennett and Kate Distin, and giving
> viewpoints opposing the theory (Steven Rose, Mary Midgeley).
>
> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how I could jazz-up this
> presentation, in order to put the topic across in a novel way?
>
> For example, I had thought of playing one of those annoying mobile
> ringtones at the start in order to demonstrate a clear example of what
> a meme could be. However, I'm after something a bit more novel -
> something that will really add sparkle to the talk.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas? Or any advice about the talk in general?
>
> Ben
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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