The finished paper will be between 15 and 25 pages in length, not including bibliography (about 4500-7500 words), will draw on at least ten scholarly sources (you may use Bradley Wiggins’ textbook and other course readings as no more than five of your sources), and will take one of three forms: primary research and documentation of the memetics of a discourse community, analysis of a meme developing and propagating across discourse communities, or discussion of a topic in memetics.
Examples of successful research paper topics include:
An analysis of the r/marvelmemes subreddit and how it memed in response to the releases of Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
An analysis of #NBA Twitter’s use of memes both to communicate about NBA fandom and about #NBA Twitter users’ lives.
An analysis of meta-memes in the KnowYourMeme.com community as a way to comment upon and pressure the admins of the community.
A history of the development of Ironic Doge memes from 2010 to 2020.
An analysis of the memes circulating among medical students on r/medschoolmemes.
An overview of recent meme-based advertising campaigns.
You will be expected to document your examples and case studies using permanent links. Remember to cite and explain the scholarship you use to analyze and explain the discourse community’s behavior and memetics.
You will draw upon existing scholarship to meaningfully analyze the topic or community
You will provide rigorous and systematic analysis of the topic or community, explaining relevant discursive communities in terms of their online infrastructure, their digital culture, their demographics and social patterns and hierarchies, their rules and patterns of behavior, subcommunities within the community, tensions and faultlines and patterns of disagreement, etc
You will explain how agents meme (the role memetics play in their discourse, patterns of meme use, specific memes and syntaxes common to the community, how their use of memes interacts with other discourses and memetic ecosystems, etcetera) and will explicitly analyze memes from the community or relating to the topic, contextualize them, break them down, and explicitly discuss their discursive role
You will advance a clear and meaningful thesis supported by an argument that draws on well-founded and explicit evidence
Your paper must be organized in a meaningful and logical way, providing background and relevant analytical tools, performing analysis, and coming to a conclusion
Attached are a few examplary research papers and the Bradley Wiggins textbook