Information Processing and Management | April 2020
Combining humor with cultural relevance, Internet memes have become a ubiquitous artifact of the digital age. As Richard Dawkins described in his book The Selfish Gene, memes behave like cultural genes as they propagate and evolve through a complex process of `mutation' and `inheritance'. On the Internet, these memes activate inherent biases in a culture or society, sometimes replacing logical approaches to persuasive argument. Despite their fair share of success on the Internet, their detection and evolution have remained understudied. In this research, we propose and evaluate Meme-Hunter, a multi-modal deep learning model to classify images on the Internet as memes vs non-memes, and compare this to uni-modal approaches. We then use image similarity, meme specific optical character recognition, and face detection to find and study families of memes shared on Twitter in the 2018 US Mid-term elections. By mapping meme mutation in an electoral process, this study confirms Richard Dawkins' concept of meme evolution.
Sumeet Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He studies problems at the intersection of technology and society. He is interested in analysing user behaviour, quantifying polarisation on online forums , and finding advertisements disguised as regular content on online platforms. His current focus is on identifying implicit or hidden advertisements in videos posted on children’s platforms such as YouTube Kids.
Additionally, Professor Kumar has conducted research in software design and development, with particular emphasis on user experience. He has investigated the use of mobile phone sensors during emergencies to improve situational awareness. His study on the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) service in the United States addressed several issues of critical importance to emergency alerts effectiveness and adoption. Notably, some of his research recommendations was included in the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed changes to WEA.
He completed his undergraduate education at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He holds two Master’s degrees—in Software Engineering and in Machine Learning--both from Carnegie Mellon University, where he also earned his doctorate degree.
