Revisions, future direction, and peer response

 Hi everyone!

I'm excited about the direction this research is taking! When I first took on the topic of internet memes I had only a passing interest in the subject, and thought, this is something I wouldn't mind learning more about. After putting as much work into it as I have, I feel much more invested. I even feel like the research I'm proposing would make a valuable contribution to scholarship on the topic, and that if I did it properly, I would have a study (probably) worthy of publication. 

When I got my edits back from my lit review, I was thoroughly impressed by the level of attention it got. Like...I've haven't seen that much red on my paper since ENGL1010. I was immediately like "OMG a blood bath! I got to see what's wrong with this!" So I went through the whole thing the same night I got it back. It turns out the edits and revisions weren't major, but it did point out to me that I need to be just a bit more thorough when I was editing myself beforehand. I found the process very helpful and I'm ready to go for the next part. Thanks to professor Bacabac for putting so much effort into ensuring the quality of my work, I really appreciate it.

The direction I've chosen for my research proposal is to design a mixed methods study aimed at advancing study of both the meme life cycle (rise to relative popularity, peak, and decline) using mostly quantitative methods to describe observed patterns, while using qualitative methods (brief case study focused on content analysis) of example memes elicited by and representative of a few of the key patterns that emerge from the quant analysis. The qualitative aspect highlights my original intent, to better understand how the content of a meme affects its life cycle, the quantitative aspect does what (as far as I have seen) has not yet been done, which is providing vital statistics and visualization of life cycle pattern types as a whole. 

The only think I haven't exactly settled on is my sample size. Memes are a hugely diverse medium, with hundreds of millions of iterations/specimens to study. I have a suggestion in my outline for the method of sampling I would take, but even that would have to run on a computer in the background for a total of about a week to collect the sample I would like. Of course, at this stage, I'm just proposing it at this stage. Otherwise, I will have to dig a bit deeper to try to get a sample that is a bit smaller but still meaningful. It is certainly doable though.


Comments

  1. Adell KirkmanOctober 29, 2022 at 12:15 PM

    Mike, the scholarship you are doing is very timely and entertaining. It is interesting to think that an artifact such as a meme could have a timeline or a lifeline. It reminds me of the "Charlie bit my finger" and how they did a little news blip of how Charlie wants to focus on building up his following again. The fact of the matter is, very few people care about it anymore because that YouTube bit has lived its life. Not sure if this is making sense, but it is a similar concept with memes. Their lifetime is short. I guess what I want to know is how you will tie in qualitative research with a topic that is so incredibly huge. To me it seems like quantitative would be sufficient, but I'm sure that you will tie it all together wonderfully. Good luck as you continue your scholarship. This topic is definitely publish-worthy.

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  2. florence08November 3, 2022 at 3:11 PM

    On another note, I suddently remembered this Rickroll meme.. =))

    Am glad you're distilling your interests more on this topic. Enjoy the ride and the amazing things this will take you.

    Dr. B

    ReplyDelete

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