Theorizing the Web 2014

Virality, Uncreativity and the End of Self-Expression

presented by Rob Horning

With social media, the com­pelling oppor­tu­ni­ties for self-expression out­strip the sup­ply of things we have to con­fi­dent­ly say about our­selves. The demand for self-expression over­whelms what we might dredge up from the inside, from our true selves. So the self that we’re express­ing in social media has to be posit­ed else­where. We start to bor­row from the net­work. We start to bor­row from imag­ined future selves that we can project. We start to bor­row from the media them­selves and from oth­er kinds of con­tent cir­cu­lat­ing there that we can now con­sti­tute our­selves with.

Meme Warriors and Media Viruses: Theorizing the Persuasive Political Power of the Web

presented by Joel Penney

[The] per­sua­sion mod­el advanced by Rushkoff and Lasn is par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful for think­ing crit­i­cal­ly through a vari­ety of recent politically-oriented web phe­nom­e­na like pro­file pic­ture chang­ing cam­paigns, polit­i­cal viral videos, hash­tag activism and the like. 

Lulz Will Find a Way: How Meme Culture is Empowering civic Engagement in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

presented by Patrick Sharbaugh

Among oth­er things [The Cute Cat Theory] sug­gests that ordi­nary online tools and plat­forms, the kind that peo­ple com­mon­ly use to share innocu­ous con­tent such as cute pic­tures of cats make it pos­si­ble for non-activist users to cre­ate and dis­sem­i­nate activist con­tent online.