Hi all,
I’m currently engaged in a sociological research project about internet memes as part of my final year project at university and I'm looking for people who'd been interested in participating in an online interview. The interview itself can take place either on the sites IRC server or via email, depending on your preference.
Before I explain the project itself, I would like to assure everyone that the data produced for this project will not be linked to the site, the staff or the community in any way. The site will simply be referred to as a 'popular internet meme database’ during the write up for this project and participants will be given pseudonyms during the data analysis stage. I would also like to reiterate that this project is simply part of my degree course so it’s not subject to any external funding or organisation and will only be seen by my supervisor and those marking the final write up.
This project intends to be a general sociological enquiry into the phenomenon of internet memes in the Web 2.0 era. This will hopefully be achieved by focusing on three main themes: (1) what is an internet meme, (2) how they are created, (3) how and why there are reproduced? These are the three main themes that will be explored in the interviews.
Although I am adopting this quite open approach, it doesn’t mean I don’t have my own ideas on the subject. For instance, in contrast to a great deal of the existing academic literature and research on the subject, which has a tendency to focus on the particular features that make online content ‘go viral’, I am particularly interested in internet memes that are more localised to particular online communities, the various ways such memes can be used and functions they can perform, especially with regard to social identity.
With regard to the actual interviews, as I said earlier in the post, they can take place either on this sites IRC server or via email, depending on your preference. The IRC interviews will take around two hours and will take place in a password protected channel on this sites IRC network. If you don’t have two hours to spare but are interested then the email interviews may well be better suited as they can be done at your own pace. The email interviews will be protracted over several messages and will allow for participants to answer questions in much more depth, however, there will be no majors differences between the two mediums as they will focus on the same themes.
I have no particular requirements when it comes to participants for this project, but as I stated above I am especially interested in memes that are localised to particular online communities, so if you have knowledge of these kinds of internet memes, not necessarily from this site but any communities you have been involved in, that would be great.
Any further information regarding the interviews and a consent form will be provided upon your agreement to participate. I would like to note that I prefer a more conversational approach to interviewing so you will be free to express yourself and relay any relevant information or anecdotes regarding your experience of internet memes. Furthermore, participation in this project completely voluntary so you can withdraw at any point and your data will not be used in the project.
I hope to begin these interviews as soon as possible, so if you’re interested in internet memes or internet culture in general and would like to participate in these interviews then please post here or send me a PM so we can sort out the logistics. I am based in the UK so time differences could come into play when organising the interviews. Also, if anyone would like any further information as to the project itself or what your participations will entail please go ahead and ask.
Thank you for taking your time out to read this, I appreciate it was quite a long post. I look forward to hearing from people.
Gus
tl; dr I'm looking for people to participate in online interviews about internet memes.