Do Internets Memes Have a Specific Mode of Propagation

Internet memes, in the form of amusing content circulating broadly on the Web, are currently a noteworthy feature of online social network usage. On the Chinese social network Sina Weibo, memes have become a widespread form of discussion about which little is known. This article explores the spread of various types of content, to further our understanding of the particularities of Internet memes. It examines semantic, social and spatio-temporal dynamics in a sample of content : marketing, current affairs, humour, and political scandals. It then proposes a topogram, a model designed to structure the interpretation of the results produced by the visualization and data analysis tools. This analytical framework can be used to define socio-semantic and spatio-temporal models of Web content.