TY - JOUR
T1 - The misunderstanding of memes
T2 - Biography of an unscientific object, 1976-1999
AU - Burman, Jeremy Trevelyan
PY - 2012/5/1
Y1 - 2012/5/1
N2 - When the “meme” was introduced in 1976, it was as a metaphor intended to illuminate an evolutionary argument. By the late-1980s, however, we see from its use in major US newspapers that this original meaning had become obscured. The meme became a virus of the mind. (In the UK, this occurred slightly later.) It is also now clear that this becoming involved complex sustained interactions between scholars, journalists, and the letter-writing public. We must therefore read the “meme” through lenses provided by its popularization. The results are in turn suggestive of the processes of meaning-construction in scholarly communication more generally.
AB - When the “meme” was introduced in 1976, it was as a metaphor intended to illuminate an evolutionary argument. By the late-1980s, however, we see from its use in major US newspapers that this original meaning had become obscured. The meme became a virus of the mind. (In the UK, this occurred slightly later.) It is also now clear that this becoming involved complex sustained interactions between scholars, journalists, and the letter-writing public. We must therefore read the “meme” through lenses provided by its popularization. The results are in turn suggestive of the processes of meaning-construction in scholarly communication more generally.
UR - http://www.mitpressjournals.org/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=posc
U2 - 10.1162/POSC_a_00057
DO - 10.1162/POSC_a_00057
M3 - Article
SN - 1063-6145
VL - 20
SP - 75
EP - 104
JO - Perspectives on Science
JF - Perspectives on Science
IS - 1
ER -