final paper

The path of media through the internet is often created by the alteration of an original by a series of individuals who create interweaving paths and formations for the text. An original video, song, image etc is posted, assigned some kind of meaning and then made into countless alterations and reformations on its journey around the world wide web. As these texts are circulated, they are also being archived. This ‘path’ could be mapped in the same way the great garbage patch could – as a copy of something that never actually existed.

I would like to focus on perhaps one of these memes and focus on its ability to be mapped, and what can be gathered from its path and alterations.

What is lost or gained in the alterations and meaning formations that the meme takes on its path? (Can these changes/paths be seen in the same way as Tsing’s points of friction?)

What can be said about personal agency on a glocal scale? (ie what are the implications of an individual who creates an alteration to a global text and then re circulates that new copy on a global scale)

Is this another form of decentralized action? (as Keenan says about the use of blogs in Kosovo)

Could a meme be seen as a type of allegorical package that brings universals to the local through points of friction and misunderstanding? (Tsing)

Is this focus on circulating production and reproductions a productive or destructive force? (Lee and LiPuma, Tsing)