THE WORLD MADE MEME: DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY IN PARTICIPATORY MEDIA BY RYAN M. MILNER ©2012 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Communication Studies and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson Nancy K. Baym ________________________________ Jay Childers ________________________________ Dave Tell ________________________________ Yan Bing Zhang ________________________________ Ben Chappell Date Defended: May 08 2012 ii The Dissertation Committee for Ryan M. Milner certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: THE WORLD MADE MEME: DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY IN PARTICIPATORY MEDIA ________________________________ Chairperson Nancy K. Baym Date Approved: June 01 2012 iii ABSTRACT This project explores internet memes as public discourse. ‘Meme’ is a term coined by biologist Richard Dawkins to describe the flow, flux, mutation, and evolution of culture, a cultural counter to the gene. But the term has evolved within many online collectives, and is shifting in public discourse. In this emerging sense, ‘memes’ are amateur media artifacts, extensively remixed and recirculated by different participants on social media networks. But there is reason to doubt how broad and inclusive this amateur participation is. If the networks producing memes are truly participatory, they will definitionally facilitate diverse discourses and represent diverse identities. Therefore, we need detailed empirical work on specific participatory sites in order to clarify questions of mediated cultural participation. My goal was a better understanding of discourse and identity in participatory media through an investigation of memes and the collectives producing them. To answer this question of mediated cultural participation, I used a critical discourse analytic method and focused on three criteria indicative of cultural participation: processes, identities, and politics. The results were mixed. First, while the formal processes necessary for making memes were open, they required literacy to engage. Second, while meme collectives were readily and broadly accessible by diverse identities and perspectives, they were gatekept by subcultural insiders who privileged some and marginalized others. Third, while diverse political commentary did occur, it happened in a relatively narrow frame of perspectives. However, these inequalities did not mean polyvocal public participation was absent in meme collectives. Memes were a means to transform established cultural texts into new ones, to negotiate the worth of diverse identities, and to engage in unconventional arguments about public policy and current events. Memes were a mix of old inequalities and new participation. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Like the artifacts contained herein, this work is collaborative. It’s the process of years of insight and sacrifice from the people closest to me. I first wandered into Nancy Baym’s graduate seminar on digital media six years ago, a dazed M.A. student who wasn’t quite sure why he was there. In the six years sense, she has read as many drafts of my work as I have, written more letters of recommendation than I deserve, and offered immeasurable guidance on what it means to be a scholar. Any current or future successes I’ve enjoyed are hers and mine in equal measure. The same could be said for the rest of the committee guiding this project. I’ve crowded the offices and struggled through the seminars of Jay Childers, Dave Tell, Yan Bing Zhang, and Ben Chappell, groping with half-formed ideas. They’ve walked them to fruition. I’ve also sat in those seminars with some of the finest friends and colleagues I could hope for. My fellow graduate students Mike Anderson, Evan Center, Chelsea Graham, and Vince Meserko have listened intently as I’ve droned on about the public worth of internet cat comics. All of these influences are a part of what’s below. At home, my wife Sarah has been no less instrumental in the process. Every night out I skipped, every movie I half watched, every academic rant she handled gracefully has cemented her place in the project. None of this dissertation, truly, would exist without her. Sophia, just turned four, and Gabriel, mere weeks old, have sacrificed time and attention as well. But they’ve been lights guiding the way through. Thanks to Mom and brother Eric too. Their support hasn’t wavered over the years. They’ve been no different now. Last, of course, is the internet. The epic gets, the hardcore pwnage, the so much win. The creativity and voice in the artifacts that fill these pages have kept me laughing for the last 18 months, even as I sometimes cringed. Few dissertations can say that. Thanks for the lulz. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page..........................................................................................................................................i Acceptance Page..............................................................................................................................ii Abstract...........................................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................................iv Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................v 1. Artifacts: Memes as Participatory Media....................................................................................1 2. Arguments: Processes, Identities, and Politics..........................................................................24 3. Methods: The Critical Analysis of Mediated Discourses..........................................................61 4. Processes: Conventional Transformation and Subcultural Literacy..........................................83 5. Identities: Dominant Discourses and Negotiated Representations..........................................142 6. Politics: Polyvocal Participation and Pop Savvy Commentary...............................................212 7. Lessons: The World Made Meme............................................................................................285 References....................................................................................................................................308 1 CHAPTER ONE Artifacts: Memes as Participatory Media Mediated Cultural Participation The era of you. In 2006, TIME Magazine declared ‘You’ its person of the year (Grossman, 2006, Dec. 25). The declaration bucked 80 years of primarily honoring warriors, world leaders, and business tycoons (a notable exception was 1982, when ‘the computer’ was recognized; Rosenblatt, 1983, Jan. 3). You were recognized because now you could engage the world in bold new ways: It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. (Grossman, 2006, Dec. 25) According to TIME what’s different is ‘Web 2.0’. We have a new set of communication technologies, which allow broader engagement with our world: a louder voice, a longer reach. And, maybe, a more democratic public sphere. Web 2.0, the magazine says, is “not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together” for intellectuals and officials. Instead, it’s “a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter”. What’s different, in a word, is participation. For TIME and others (Jenkins, 2006; Lévy, 2001; Terranova, 2004), the rigid gatekeepers and old hierarchies which pervaded the mass-mediated age are shifting. We now live, ostensibly, in a more ‘participatory’ culture. Where the mass media of the past were the domain of paid 2 experts and the investors that backed them, TIME tells us that now “car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux” (Grossman, 2006, Dec. 25). Whenever you – the ‘you’ of TIME fame – update your Facebook status, edit a Wikipedia entry, upload a video on YouTube, or download a videogame mod, you’re engaging in a participatory practice. These practices – aggregating across thousands of platforms and millions of users – promise to TIME a shift in public voice. In a participatory culture, the magazine says, “we're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy”. ‘Participatory culture’ has been of increasing interest to media scholars and practitioners over the last decade. In the same year TIME pointed to you, Jenkins (2006) proposed that new trends were developing in the media industry. While gatekeepers and hierarchies still exist, there’s now less room to differentiate between those producing media and those consuming them. In Lessig’s (2008) terms, a heretofore ‘read only’ media culture is being opened up for more ‘read/write’ participation among media audiences. Fan-made commercials are making