Message-Id: <36418E29.2F1CF0FB@mmu.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 11:38:17 +0000
From: Bruce Edmonds <b.edmonds@mmu.ac.uk>
To: jom-emit-ann@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: New paper (JoM-EMIT): Memetics and Social Contagion: Two Sides of the Same Coin? - Paul Marsden
Memetics and Social Contagion: Two Sides
of the Same Coin?
Paul Marsden
Abstract
Following a thematic overview of social contagion
research, this paper examines the question of whether this
established field of social science and the nascent
discipline of memetics can be usefully understood as two
sides of the same coin. It is suggested that social
contagion research, currently lacking a conceptual
framework or organising principle, may be characterised
as a body of evidence without theory. Conversely, it is
suggested that memetics, now over two decades old but
yet to be operationalised, may be characterised as a body
of theory without evidence. The article concludes by
proposing a memetic theory of social contagion, arguing
that social contagion research and memetics are indeed
two sides of the same social epidemiological coin, and
ends with a call for their synthesis into a comprehensive
body of theoretically informed research.
Available at:
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1998/vol2/marsden_p.html
Also a review of: Shifting the Patterns: Breaching the Memetic Codes of
Corporate Performance - If Price and Ray Shaw, (1998) by Paul Marsden
Available at:
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1998/vol2/marsden_p2.html