A meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person
within a culture." A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas,
symbols or practices,
which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech,
gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard
memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and
respond to selective pressures. The word meme is a shortening of mimeme and it
was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish
Gene as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the
spread of ideas and cultural phenomena.
Examples of memes given in the book included melodies,
catch-phrases, fashion and the technology of building arches. Proponents
theorize that memes may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to
that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation,
mutation, competition and inheritance, each of which influences a meme's
reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in
their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others
may survive, spread and mutate.
Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and
some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the
welfare of their hosts. A field of study called memetics arose in the 1990s to
explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an evolutionary
model. Criticism from a variety of fronts has challenged the notion that
academic study can examine memes empirically. However, developments in
neuroimaging may make empirical study possible. Some commentators in the social
sciences question the idea that one can meaningfully categorize culture in
terms of discrete units, and are especially critical of the biological nature
of the theory's underpinnings others, including Dawkins himself, have argued
that this usage of the term is the result of a misunderstanding of the original
proposal.
