Blog Assignment 3

CS 371-Social Media and Social Life

Blog Post Assignment #3

Over the past few classes, we have been exploring the concept of media assemblages or media ecologies. A media ecology is an assemblage of media forms and communicative practices which creates and specific media environment.  In class, we discussed how different media assemblages and ecologies are constituted (for our analytical purposes) by several distinctive sets of articulations.

The first articulation entails considering the relationship between the media message or its contents, the technological means or material form of the medium that carries the message; and the agents or specific roles that people play in production, distribution, and consumption of the messages.   

The second articulation entails looking at how media modes of productions are simultaneously a mode of communication (social practices of creating symbolic meaning), modes of affect (social practices of emotion and embodiment that attached to meaning) and a mode of accumulation (social practices of accumulating capital and power).

The third articulation concerns how media artifacts and messages are brought into being and spread through a culture, community, or society, and is manifested in the spatio-temporal dynamics of relations of creativity and production, relations of distribution and circulation, and relations of consumption and reception.

Your task in this blog post is to reflect on how ONE (although you can do more if the spirit moves you)  of these articulations is  manifested in two examples of media texts “going viral” drawn very different media ecologies of print and social media: Martin Luther’s 95 Theses (the actual title of which was Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”)that helped spark the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century (discussed on pages 48-63 in Standage, Writing on the Wall) and the appropriation and spread of “Pepe the Frog” as white ethno-nationalist meme in the context of Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign.

In addition to the lectures and the Standage book, you may use these additional newspaper and internet resources that are listed and linked below:

1) The Strange Internet Journey Of Pepe The ‘Chilled-Out Stoner Frog’ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/matt-furie-pepe-frog-meme_us_57ed3a6fe4b0c2407cdc4298)

2) Long Before Twitter, Martin Luther Was a Media Pioneer http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/arts/design/long-before-twitter-martin-luther-was-a-media-pioneer.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=wide-thumb&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0)

3) Pepe the Frog Meme Listed as a Hate Symbol (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/us/pepe-the-frog-is-listed-as-a-hate-symbol-by-the-anti-defamation-league.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=1&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/us/pepe-the-frog-is-listed-as-a-hate-symbol-by-the-anti-defamation-league.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0)

4) Campaign Aims to Help Pepe the Frog Shed Its Image as Hate Symbol (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/us/campaign-aims-to-help-pepe-the-frog-shed-its-image-as-hate-symbol.html)

5)  How Pepe the Frog and Nasty Woman Are Shaping the Election (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/style/know-your-meme-pepe-the-frog-nasty-woman-presidential-election.html)

6) CNN segment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iu2HXqotKM&feature=youtu.be)

7) Pepe the Frog Entry at Know Your Meme (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-the-frog)

The due dates for this assignment are Monday, November 14th , 6 PM for your original posts and Friday, November 18th , 6 PM for your responses.