Editing Memetics (section)

=== "Internet Memetics" ===
{{Also see|Internet meme}}
A new framework of ''Internet Memetics'' initially borrowed Blackmore's conceptual developments but is effectively a data-driven approach, focusing on digital artifacts. This was led primarily by conceptual developments Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel (2006) <ref>{{Cite book |first=Colin |last=Lankshear |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1306561905 |title=New literacies everyday practices and social learning |date=2011 |publisher=Open University Press |isbn=978-1-283-26917-9 |oclc=1306561905}}</ref> and [[Limor Shifman]] and Mike Thelwall (2009).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Shifman |first1=Limor |last2=Thelwall |first2=Mike |date=December 2009 |title=Assessing global diffusion with Web memetics: The spread and evolution of a popular joke |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21185 |journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology |language=en |volume=60 |issue=12 |pages=2567–2576 |doi=10.1002/asi.21185 |access-date=2022-12-18 |archive-date=2022-12-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221218223827/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21185 |url-status=live}}</ref> Shiman, in particular, followed Susan Blackmore in rejecting the internalist and externalist debate, however did not offer a clear connection to prior evolutionary frameworks. Later in 2014, she rejected the historical relevance of "information" to memetics. Instead of memes being ''units of cultural information'', she argued information is exclusively delegated to be "the ways in which addressers position themselves in relation to [a meme instance's] text, its linguistic codes, the addressees, and other potential speakers."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Shifman |first=Limor |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/860711989 |title=Memes in digital culture |date=2014 |isbn=978-1-4619-4733-2 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |oclc=860711989 |access-date=2022-12-18 |archive-date=2022-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622003628/https://www.worldcat.org/title/memes-in-digital-culture/oclc/860711989 |url-status=live}}</ref> This is what she called ''stance,'' which is analytically distinguished from the ''content'' and ''form'' of her meme. As such, Shifman's developments can be seen as critical to Dawkins's meme, but also as a somewhat distinct conceptualization of the meme as a communicative system dependent on the internet and social media platforms. By introducing memetics as an internet study there has been a rise in empirical research. That is, memetics in this conceptualization has been notably testable by the application of social science methodologies. It has been popular enough that following Lankshear and Knobel's (2019) review of empirical trends, they warn those interested in memetics that theoretical development should not be ignored, concluding that, <blockquote>"[R]ight now would be a good time for anyone seriously interested in memes to revisit Dawkins’ work in light of how internet memes have evolved over the past three decades and reflect on what most merits careful and conscientious research attention."<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Lankshear |first1=Colin |last2=Knobel |first2=Michele |date=2019 |title=Memes, Macros, Meaning, and Menace: Some Trends in Internet Memes |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.18848/2470-9247/cgp/v04i04/43-57 |journal=The Journal of Communication and Media Studies |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=43–57 |doi=10.18848/2470-9247/cgp/v04i04/43-57 |s2cid=214369629 |issn=2470-9247}}</ref></blockquote>As Lankshear and Knobel show, the Internet Memetic reconceptualization is limited in addressing long-standing memetic theory concerns. It is not clear that existing Internet Memetic theory's departure from conceptual dichotomies between internalist and externalist debate are compatible with most earlier concerns of memetics. Internet Memetics might be understood as a study without an agreed upon theory, as present research tends to focus on empirical developments answering theories of other areas of cultural research. It exists more as a set of distributed studies than a methodology, theory, field, or discipline, with a few exceptions such as Shifman and those closely following her motivating framework.