Blog Post #3 [Articulation 3] - Josh DiBellonia

      For this third and final blog post, I am going to be reflecting on how the third articulation of medias assemblage is manifested in two prime example of media texts that have gone viral. The first example is concerned with a meme that had made its way all throughout social back in the spring of 2019. The “woman yelling at cat” meme has become known as a popular meme to throughout social media. Its anatomy is made up two separate images taken at two separate locations at two separate times. This unique and viral combinatorial remix text demonstrates the power of social media and its ability to digitally reproduced copies of the meme the produced and distributed by the thousands through multiple social media platforms. The circulation of the meme demonstrates how media texts and messages such as this meme are brought into being and spread throughout a culture and the online social community. Advancements in photo-enhancing digital technologies and communication technologies have made the circulation ad production of memes possible for everyone. provide users of social media the ability to distribute memes as a self-produced cultural text/product. 

    By looking at martin Luther’s 95 Theses through the lens of the third articulation, it can be said that the Martin Luther strategically used the media of his time to make the ideas of the Reformation happen. Copies of Luther’s texts were produced by the hundreds… and the significance of the message on each of the copies was shared and passed from person to person within a local community (Standage, 53). As Tanya Mohn Suggests, the relations of distribution and circulation that the printing press afforded Luther allowed him to create a media storm with virtually no precedent in the age of print and became the most published author in the history of publishing, up to that moment (Mohn, par. 18) Much like the consumption and popular reception of the Woman Yelling at a Cat” meme as seen on social media, the consumption and reception of the copies of the reformation were done by sharing of pamphlets, which soon after its release cause a social reception that became a social affair that created public spaces of debate and display their religious political loyalty. Social media provides the unique benefit over printed text in that it allows for the creativity of creating a digital text, and the production and distribution of it to be done almost instantaneously. This is vastly different than the process of distribution as seen with Protestant Reformation in the 16th century that saw a structured break between the moments of production, distribution, and consumption. 

    In conclusion, both examples discussed here demonstrate how media texts can either be in a durable material form or digital as seen with memes online, that can be distributed and received in a variety of spatial and temporal contexts while both having the capabilities of transmitting cultural values through a culture, community, or society.