Editing Memetics (section)

==New developments==
{{synthesis|date=June 2015}}

===Alternative definitions===
*Dawkins, in ''[[A Devil's Chaplain]]'', expanded his definition of meme by saying there are actually two different types of memetic processes (controversial and informative). The first is a type of cultural idea, action, or expression, which does have high variance; for instance, a student of his who had inherited some of the mannerisms of [[Wittgenstein]]. The second type is a self-correcting meme that is highly resistant to mutation. As an example of this, he gives [[origami]] patterns taught to elementary students– the meme is either passed on in the exact sequence of instructions, or (in the case of a forgetful child) terminates. The self-correcting meme tends to not evolve, and to experience profound mutations in the rare event that it does.
*Another definition, given by [[Hokky Situngkir]], tried to offer a more rigorous formalism for the meme, ''memeplexes'', and the ''[[deme (biology)|deme]]'', seeing the meme as a cultural unit in a cultural [[complex system]]. It is based on the Darwinian [[genetic algorithm]] with some modifications to account for the different patterns of evolution seen in genes and memes. In the method of memetics as the way to see culture as a [[complex adaptive system]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cogprints.org/4772/|title=On Selfish Memes: culture as complex adaptive system|author=Situngkir, Hokky|date=16 Mar 2006|access-date=2010-02-18|archive-date=2009-07-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090724043044/http://cogprints.org/4772/|url-status=live}}</ref> he describes a way to see memetics as an alternative methodology of cultural [[evolution]].
*DiCarlo (2010) developed the definition of meme further to include the idea of 'memetic equilibrium', which describe a culturally compatible state with [[Homeostasis|biological equilibrium]]. In "How Problem Solving and Neurotransmission in the Upper Paleolithic led to The Emergence and Maintenance of Memetic Equilibrium in Contemporary World Religions", DiCarlo argues that as human consciousness evolved and developed, so too did our ancestors' capacity to consider and attempt to solve environmental problems in more conceptually sophisticated ways. When a satisfactory solution is found, the feeling of environmental stability, or memetic equilibrium, is achieved. The relationship between a gradually emerging conscious awareness and sophisticated languages in which to formulate representations combined with the desire to maintain biological equilibrium, generated the necessity for equilibrium to fill in conceptual gaps in terms of understanding three very important aspects in the Upper Paleolithic: causality, morality, and mortality. The desire to explain phenomena in relation to maintaining survival and reproductive stasis, generated a normative stance in the minds of our ancestors—Survival/Reproductive Value (or S-R Value).
*Limor Shifman (2014) defines ''Internet memes'', memes in digitally mediated contexts, to be (a) a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which (b) were created with awareness of each other, and (c) were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users.<ref>{{Citation |last=Shifman |first=Limor |title=Memes in digital culture |date=2014 |url= |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-1-4690-6325-6 |oclc=}}</ref> Further, she outlines ''content'' as "both ideas and ideologies", ''form'' as "the physical incarnation of the message", and ''stance'' as "the information memes convey about their own communication''."'' Stance is about how actors (e.g. people) position themselves in relation to content and form of the media as well as those who might be addressed by the message.
*Over a decade after Kull's and Deacon's semiotic critique, Sara Cannizzaro offered her own development to redeem memes as fully formed [[Biosemiotics|cybersemiotic]] signs which has had limited success among those adjacent to Internet Memetics.<ref name="Cannizzaro 562–586">{{Cite journal |last=Cannizzaro |first=Sara |date=2016-12-31 |title=Internet memes as internet signs: A semiotic view of digital culture |url=http://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/sss/article/view/SSS.2016.44.4.05 |journal=Sign Systems Studies |language=en |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=562–586 |doi=10.12697/SSS.2016.44.4.05 |issn=1736-7409 |s2cid=53374867 |doi-access=free |access-date=2022-12-18 |archive-date=2023-02-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230201012712/https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/sss/article/view/SSS.2016.44.4.05 |url-status=live}}</ref> In particular, she translates many of the neo-Darwinian conceptualizations of evolution to biosemiotic evolutionary concepts. This approach was theoretically integrated with an empirical investigation of information in Alexander O. Smith and Jeff Hemsley's development. They suggested under the influence of Cannizzaro's work that memes are "an information transmission network of documents connected through their differences among similarities and is interpreted as a semiotic system".<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Alexander O. |last2=Hemsley |first2=Jeff |date=2022-08-09 |title=Memetics as informational difference: offering an information-centric conception of memes |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JD-07-2021-0140/full/html |journal=Journal of Documentation |language=en |volume=78 |issue=5 |pages=1149–1163 |doi=10.1108/JD-07-2021-0140 |issn=0022-0418 |s2cid=252163642 |access-date=2022-12-18 |archive-date=2022-12-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221218202823/https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JD-07-2021-0140/full/html |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Memetic analysis===
*The possibility of quantitative analysis of memes using [[functional neuroimaging|neuroimaging]] tools and the suggestion that such studies have already been done was given by McNamara (2011).<ref name="mcnamara">{{harvnb|McNamara|2011}}</ref>  This author proposes [[hyperscanning]] (concurrent scanning of two communicating individuals in two separate MRI machines) as a key tool in the future for investigating memetics.
*Proponents of memetics as described in the ''Journal of Memetics'' (out of print since 2005<ref name=JOM>{{cite web|title=Journal of Memetics|url=http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/|access-date=10 March 2014|archive-date=10 August 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810103732/http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/|url-status=dead}}</ref>) believe that 'memetics' has the potential to be an important and promising analysis of culture using the framework of evolutionary concepts.
*[[Keith Henson]] in ''Memetics and the Modular-Mind'' (Analog Aug. 1987)<ref>{{cite web|author=Keith Henson View profile More options|url=http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.mindcontrol/msg/103e03bce6100cac?hl=en&|title=Promise Keepers: Is it a Cult? - alt.mindcontrol |via=Google Groups |date=1997-10-05|access-date=2010-02-18|archive-date=2014-03-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140310090600/http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.mindcontrol/msg/103e03bce6100cac?hl=en&|url-status=dead}}</ref> makes the case that memetics needs to incorporate [[evolutionary psychology]] to understand the psychological traits of a meme's host.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120709131213/http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-07-09|title=Sex, Drugs, and Cults by H. Keith Henson|publisher=Human-nature.com|access-date= 2010-02-18}}</ref>
*The primary analytic approaches of internet memetics has been more in association with visual culture and communication methodologies. These researchers justify the existence of memes by way of culturally association,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gal |first1=Noam |last2=Shifman |first2=Limor |last3=Kampf |first3=Zohar |date=September 2016 |title="It Gets Better": Internet memes and the construction of collective identity |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444814568784 |journal=New Media & Society |language=en |volume=18 |issue=8 |pages=1698–1714 |doi=10.1177/1461444814568784 |s2cid=206728484 |issn=1461-4448 |access-date=2023-07-16 |archive-date=2023-07-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716013410/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444814568784 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref> social networks<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shifman |first=Limor |date=December 2014 |title=The Cultural Logic of Photo-Based Meme Genres |journal=Journal of Visual Culture |language=en |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=340–358 |doi=10.1177/1470412914546577 |issn=1470-4129|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Wiggins |first1=Bradley E |last2=Bowers |first2=G Bret |date=December 2015 |title=Memes as genre: A structurational analysis of the memescape |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444814535194 |journal=New Media & Society |language=en |volume=17 |issue=11 |pages=1886–1906 |doi=10.1177/1461444814535194 |s2cid=30729349 |issn=1461-4448 |access-date=2023-07-16 |archive-date=2023-07-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230716013410/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444814535194 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref> or networked artifacts,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Segev |first1=Elad |last2=Nissenbaum |first2=Asaf |last3=Stolero |first3=Nathan |last4=Shifman |first4=Limor |date=July 2015 |title=Families and Networks of Internet Memes: The Relationship Between Cohesiveness, Uniqueness, and Quiddity Concreteness |journal=Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication |language=en |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=417–433 |doi=10.1111/jcc4.12120|doi-access=free}}</ref> most notably online image artifacts.