Alright. So Mary Hamilton’s piece on situated literacies as it relates to imagery was… interesting, albeit a little long-winded and detailed for my tastes.
However, I really loved this discussion of the way in which images, such as photos inserted in a newspaper, can both compliment and conflict with the text-based literature that accompanies it. Mary Hamilton’s study of this source material largely focuses on challenging and elaborating the concepts of ‘practice’ and ‘event’ as they relate to the images of literacy practice, however I’m sure that I’m not the only one who found this article both meaningful yet quickly antiquating as the literary culture around us rapidly shifts.
Case in point: Meme’s. Yes, those awesome little satirical and comedic pictures that accompany any long-winded Facebook comment thread or Sub-Reddit. I think it’s relatively well known that they occupy a large place in our cultural and societal marketplace of ideas and conversation, yet the meaning of these meme’s and how they contribute to the dialogue may not be entirely known yet.
My question is this: Are meme’s a version of literacy, and do they require individual literacy for not only the author but for the audience?
