I read your annotation because I was ready to take issue with the
notion of WWW as meme (and I don't think it is a meme). In the
lexicon of my own discipline (Human Communication), we would
refer to WWW as channel or medium.
On thinking it over, however, I wonder if WWW is merely a channel.
Because it is the first large, many-to-many medium, it has a tendency
to affect its message far more than other media affect theirs.
McLuhan pointed out (old news) that the medium is the message, a
familiar if somewhat hyperbolic statement. The effect of the WWW,
however, is to alter (often radically) the message originally intended
for transmission by those using it. I'll provide examples if readers
ask for them (I think most of you can come up with your own, so I
haven't bothered here).
Isn't this somewhat memetic-like behavior, for a medium (vector)??
Author: Steve Kaprielian (Steve_kap8[ at ]yahoo.com)
Date: Dec 19, 2002REPLY: "THE" WWW
I think that it is clear that the WWW is NOT a meme because of
the word "the". It is a one and only (well, for now anyway),
singular, a "the".
The essences of a meme is that it reproduces, and, I would argue,
in sufficiant number so that we can talk about its population
and the evalution of its population in a meaningful way.
I'd call the WWW a vector, and a host. It can transmit memes,
it can hold memes, and it can reproduce memes, but it is not a meme.
Steve
