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meme:
A
meme (
/ˈmiːm/[1]), a relatively newly coined term, identifies ideas or beliefs that are transmitted from one person or group of people to another. The concept comes from an analogy: as
genes transmit biological information,
memes can be said to transmit idea and belief information.
A meme acts as a unit for carrying
cultural ideas symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to
selective pressures.
[2]
The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme (from
Ancient Greek μίμημα
Greek pronunciation: [míːmɛːma] mimēma, «something imitated», from μιμεῖσθαι
mimeisthai, «to imitate», from μῖμος
mimos «mime»)
[3] and it was coined by the British evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins in
The Selfish Gene (1976)
[1][4] as a concept for discussion of
evolutionaryprinciples in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.
[5]
Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that
propagate less prolifically may become
extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse)
mutate. Memes which replicate the most effectively spread best. Some memes may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.
[6]
A field of study called
memetics[7] arose in the 1990s to explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an
evolutionary model. Criticism from a variety of fronts has challenged the notion that scholarship can examine memes empirically. Some commentators
[who?] question the idea that one can meaningfully categorize culture in terms of discrete units.
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