Blog Post #3- The First Articulation- Sophie Magwood

 For this week’s blog post we have been given the task of connecting one of the three articulations discussed in class to the viral texts: “Martin Luthers 95 theses” and the “Women Yelling at the Cat Meme”. 

As we have learned in lecture, all three articulations (message means/ agents: communication/ affect/ accumulation: production/ circulation/ consumption) become significantly reconstructed due to the socio-technical affordances of “web 2.0" (blog, wikis, podcasting, photo and video sharing) that created an architecture of mass participation- opposed to an architecture of mass consumption. With this knowledge, I was able to identify a clear connection between the two media texts and the first articulation. This articulation looks at the message content, the medium form and channel for dissemination, as well as the agents involved in production, distribution, and consumption. 

Beginning with Martin Luther’s 95 theses, his work was predominantly communicated through written text in the pamphlet. Within the reading by the New York Times, author Tanya Mohn explains how Luther was said to have “nailed his 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517, condemning the Roman Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences” (Mohn, 2016). I find it quite interesting to consider how differently the dissemination of information has evolved throughout history. In our world today, no one would likely ever think of a church door to be the best place to best disseminate a message. Instead generation turns to the internet and social media to distribute messages in seconds. Later in Mohn’s reading, she explains how “pamphlets were distributed at markets and taken by cart to other cities and read aloud publicly for those unable to read” (Mohn, 2016). Luther’s texts were translated into different languages, and disseminated through peer-to-peer connections. The incredibly successful reach of his text reflects the clever use he made given the media he had available (Standage, 2013). Through time, the theses adapted to meet the needs of the audience it was addressing. 

From the “Women Yelling at a Cat Meme”, we can further understand the first articulation. Memes are an incredibly well-known and loved cultural phenomenon, conveying all sorts of different meanings through images, text, or even sound. This particular meme displays Taylor Armstrong from The Real Housewives t.v show, and a cat image from Tumblr. The culture behind meme sharing is often done between close friends or an individuals networked community on social media platforms. Over time, memes that go viral are often edited and manipulated to adjust to newer trends. Often one picture will remain famous (such as the cat in this meme) however other aspects of the meme will change such as the text. The example below depicts how the cat meme has been manipulated and changed many times to adapt to current trends or events of relevance. 

Both the cat meme and Martin Luthers 95 theses display the first articulation. Although the messages and the medium of communication between these two texts are vastly different, both utilized this type of peer-to-peer networked communication. In addition, both texts alter themselves to maintain relevance- Luther’s theses evolved formats and the cat meme was repurposed). Both the meme and Luther’s theses were able to gain such significant popularity due to the tools utilized to capture their audience’s attention. 

Works Cited 

Mohn, T. (2016, October 28). Long before Twitter, Martin Luther was a media pioneer. New  York Times.  

Standage, T. (2013). How Luther went viral: The role of social media in revolutions. Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2000 Years. Bloomsbury Publishing.