Alexander O. Smith Proposal Defense

Alexander O. Smith will defend the proposal: “Recovering Memetics in Information: Towards an Evolutionary Information Study of Culture”
Advised by Dr. Jeff Hemsley

Memes have been connected to the concept of information since Richard Dawkins defined them in 1976. Yet, information-centric studies offer hardly any contributions. This proposal argues that memetics could and should be a subfield of Information Studies. An information-centric study of memes offers answers to questions of cultural evolution and meaning production. This proposal offers a theoretically and empirically connected space within an information-centric development of memetics. The proposed research outlines a three paper
dissertation. These three papers include a (1) systematic literature review, (2) a preliminary theory-method paper exemplifying case of how to study memetic differences, and (3) an empirical paper using network clustering analysis and trace ethnography. These three papers offer a schema for Information Studies paradigm of memetics. Firstly, an extensive outline of the literature review is given, motivating a series of open theory concerns within an informational context. Secondly, a Journal of Documentation publication outlines a theory-method approach to memetic study. Finally, a pipeline of the clustering analysis is offered. This includes the use of Know Your Meme image galleries parsed by Google Cloud Vision API. The outcome of which is a spectral clustering which offers visual memes a more nuanced criteria for classification. Additionally, a trace ethnography is proposed to provide an analysis of the apparatuses of memetic vision. A trace approach analyzes Google and Know Your Meme as powerful apparatuses which (de)centralize visual memetic experiences.

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