Guest Speaker An Xiao Mina on the topic of memes
When I think of memes, one of the first ideas that come to mind is the idea of creating a piece in this case being a meme that best represents an idea that is better understood visually rather than verbally. Just like in the practice of journalism, the way we receive the news is changing as we become more digital in the form of online, I think we can compare it to the way we look at memes as for example the political cartoons that are regularly seen in the news papers that take time to create and share are now being replaced with memes that are created and shared instanlty on the interent. One thing that Mina said that caught my attention was the idea of filter bubbles in which Mina says “for a lot of marginalized people, having a space to have conversations amongst each other can be very powerful.” This depends on the specific topic in which the filter bubble is focusing on as filter bubbles rely on accepting specific topics or angles which can be a good or bad thing depending on the topic. When it comes to expanding our reaches in understanding other communities, we can use the benefits of social media to follow local influencers and hashtags that can introduce us to ideas and those in other communities and what they follow.
