Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

I'm studying the use of memes in the classroom, how they may inspire critical thinking, effectively increase engagement, and to guide instruction to be taught from the perspective of the user.
I'm looking for active discussions from the perspective of the user (meaning, people who are talking about memes in informal conversations). A chat room may suffice, but there are always issues of ethical concern when subjects do not know they are being recorded. If anyone knows of an appropriate venue where conversations on memes can be recorded for qualitative research, I'd appreciate the suggestions

get in touch w. graduatememe, he's also researching memes in the classroom

i'm not entirely sure what your question is though: are you seeking to interview people about how memes are used in classrooms?

I want to interview people about their own perspective of memes. Cool thank you :)

Hey, got your message! Hrm, my first thought is looking to see if you campus has a student group that would be meme-trendy that you could hang out with at a meeting. I'm thinking of something like a computer club/ gamer club/ etc. My university has, I believe, two groups of this type. You might want to contact the president of the club and give him/her the low-down on what your doing; that might help you alleviate your ethical concerns.

I can't think of any specific web-forums or other places where you could go and listen in without having those ethical concerns of people not knowing. At least with the student groups, you could tell them you were doing research on "memes" but not give them any specifics. That way you could broach the topic but not guide the conversation to educational purposes.

Good luck with it! Sounds interesting!

Our substitute teacher drew a retarded looking cat and wrote
"I can't BRAIN today
I has teh DUMB" probably to reach kids better. Memes should stay in the internet, it's sad when teachers use them to make school more funnier or interesting

Memes in the classroom usually amount to those kids in that group that talk about le troll face after having liked one too many facebook meme pages. I don't really think it has much of an impact in real life, but it seems it will gradually, and sadly, seep into real life one day.

We uses memes in the classroom in year 9, (I'm in Tafe now which in Aus is like some university thing). Anyway, one could describe it as pretty cancerous. Everyone was all like "LE Trole Face XD Monkey Troubles! (with the jimmies rustled face)" and they said memes as May Mays.

I am an undergrad psychology student (with minor in communications). The purpose of this study is to conduct qualitative research regarding the use of the internet and memes, and how they may relate in a educational environment. The questionnaire is not necessarily requesting an educational perspective (though you may answer accordingly if you wish), but is requesting your perspective on meme and internet use as relates to your everyday life.
Your responses will be edited into my report, once it is finalized. If you wish to see a copy, you may e-mail me at sarah.haverty@yahoo.com. Please contact me if you have any additional questions or comments.

1) How old are you?

2) In what ways has the internet changed the way you communicate? Does this change over time? What do you think causes these changes?

3) Compare and contrast your online experiences with your experiences offline. How do they compare?

4) What do memes mean to you? or what is the definition of memes from your perspective?

5) Can you remember what you first thought about the use of memes as conversation over the internet? What do you think about it now?

6) How often would you say that you engage in meme conversations? Weekly, daily, hourly, occasionally, sporadically etc

7) Do you have any additional information or thoughts you would like to share concerning this topic?

8) If you could design your own meme right now, what would it be if you can think of anything?

9) If you could design and implement a teaching technique that employs the use of memes, how would you go about doing so? (optional)

From time to time, people do use "Ain't Nobody Got Time for That" and "YOLO". :P

I just used meme images the other day to compare and contrast high and low energy streams and what they can do. I used the Manly Man and Hugs tiem? kitten, but I didn't caption them with anything but "high energy" and "low energy." I just used their images; I thought it might help as a mnemonic.

I'd be interested in research on this as well.

Thanks Amandab and graduatememe, you guys have been a tremendous help toward getting the materials I need for my study. :) Anything I can ever do to return the favor, I'm there.

well some people have been interested and their thoughts have helped my research very much

Yeah use le funny le memes to le teach le students le history for le example. Le like George Washington was like le troll to le english XDD but he was le lika bauss and made le 'merikan revolution of 1069.

This is a bad idea. It's just a silly gimmick, that i think would only distract pupils from actual learning.

Oh yeah, and it's cancerous as fudge.

No, fuck no, memes are inside jokes used online and they should become nothing more. Once a meme reaches 13 year old boys and they start quoting it IRL, it should no longer be considered a meme, it is a dead meme.

maybe the description for my research topic is not detailed enough. The idea is not that a teacher will come to class and say "let's learn about memes today" it is more of a perspective change for the teacher's implementation of methods- and memes can be a good example to use to help understand the differences in perspective that occur between teacher and students… and may help to evolve better techniques of communique between teacher and student. Please, if anyone else is interested in helping out with this research, lemme know, I could sure use the help. :)
FYI there are also face-to-face interviews open for students in the area.

@sarahhavs

I know you're doing this as a study for school, but I'm also researching memes as linguistic tools--so I think we should collaborate. We're pretty much on the same page.

I dig that, what's the best way to get in touch with you?