Jessica Myrick, “Emotion regulation, procrastination, and watching cat videos online: Who watches Internet cats, why, and to what effect?”, Computers in Human Behavior, 2015, vol. 52, pp.168-176. Abstract: Anecdotes abound about the frequent use of the Internet to view cat-related media. Yet, research has yet to seriously address this popular culture phenomenon rooted largely in social … Continued
Christian Bauckhage, “Insights into Internet memes”. In N. Nicolov & J. G. Shanahan (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 2011, pp. 42–49. Menlo Park: The AAAI Press. Abstract: Internet memes are phenomena that rapidly gain popularity or notoriety on the Internet. Often, modifications or spoofs add to the profile … Continued
Piia Varis, Jan Blommaert, “Conviviality and collectives on social media: Virality, memes, and new social structures”, Multilingual Margins, 2015, vol. 2/1. PDF available Abstract: There is a long tradition in which ‘phatic’ forms of interaction are seen as (and characterized by) relatively low levels of ‘information’ and ‘meaning’. Yet, observations on social media interaction patterns … Continued
Albin Wagener, “The Postdigital Emergence of Memes and GIFs: Meaning, Discourse, and Hypernarrative Creativity”, Postdigit Sci Educ, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00160-1 Abstract: The use of memes and GIFs has a significant influence on interactions in social networks and online forums. As productions or utterances, these modes of communication benefit from thorough research works, notably led by Shifman, thus … Continued
Milner, R (2012). The world made meme: discourse identity in participatory media. Doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas. Available at: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/10256 Google Scholar Abstract: This project explores internet memes as public discourse. ‘Meme’ is a term coined by biologist Richard Dawkins to describe the flow, flux, mutation, and evolution of culture, a cultural counter to the gene. But the … Continued
“How cats became the undisputed mascot of the internet. The advertising slogan of the social news site Reddit is “Come for the cats. Stay for the empathy.” Journalists and their readers seem to need no explanation for the line, “The internet is made of cats.” Everyone understands the joke, but few know how it started. A … Continued