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The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers
to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is
provided by the
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
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Virulence and Digital CultureArtrip, Ryan Edward 06 June 2016 (has links)
This dissertation is a theoretical study of the role of virality/virulence as a predominant technological term in the reproduction of social and cultural information in the digital age. I argue that viral media are not new phenomena, only the name is new. Media have always behaved as viruses; it is only when they become hyper-intensified in digital technology that their virulent function surfaces in language and culture. The project examines processes of self-replication and evolution undergone by various new media phenomena as they relate back to the global profusion of social networks, data centers, and cybernetic practices. Drawing from several contributions in media theory, political and social theory, and critical media studies, I argue that digital media have a hyper-intensifying effect on whatever objects, subjects, or realities they mediate or represent; thus networked societies are virulently swarmed by their own signs and images in information. Through an examination of three primary categories of digital proliferation—language, visuality, and sexuality—I situate digital culture in a framework of virulence, arguing that the digital may be best understood as an effect of cultural hyper-saturation and implosion. I argue that virulent media networking processes come to constitute a powerful cybernetic system, which renders the human subject a mere function in its global operations. Lastly, I begin to develop a political critique of cybernetics, claiming that the proliferation of information, digital media, and communicative/representational technologies in the contemporary world emerges through an intensified ideological, economic, social, cultural, and metaphysical framework of productivism. This intensification engenders a system, or series of communicational circuits, whereby all techno-subjective activities are strategically stimulated, networked, recorded, and algorithmically appropriated to strengthen and reproduce 1) a global productivist system of cybernetics; 2) The material and ideological conditions for such a system to exist and thrive; 3) limitless virtual and digital production. / Ph. D.
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Embracing LOLitics: Popular Culture, Online Political Humor, and PlayTay, Geniesa January 2012 (has links)
The Internet, and Web 2.0 tools can empower audiences to actively participate in media creation. This allows the production of large quantities of content, both amateur and professional. Online memes, which are extensions of usually citizen-created viral content, are a recent and popular example of this. This thesis examines the participation of ordinary individuals in political culture online through humor creation. It focuses on citizen-made political humor memes as an example of engaged citizen discourse. The memes comprise of photographs of political figures altered either by captions or image editing software, and can be compared to more traditional mediums such as political cartoons, and 'green screens' used in filmmaking. Popular culture is often used as a 'common language' to communicate meanings in these texts. This thesis thus examines the relationship between political and popular culture. It also discusses the value of 'affinity spaces', which actively encourage users to participate in creating and sharing the humorous political texts. Some examples of the political humor memes include: the subversion of Vladimir Putin's power by poking fun at his masculine characteristics through acts similar to fanfiction, celebrating Barack Obama’s love of Star Wars, comparing a candid photograph of John McCain to fictional nonhuman creatures such as zombies using photomanipulation, and the wide variety of immediate responses to Osama bin Laden's death. This thesis argues that much of the idiosyncratic nature of the political humor memes comes from a motivation that lies in non-serious play, though they can potentially offer legitimate political criticism through the myths 'poached' from popular culture.
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