Who Drives the Big Car?

Abstract

This paper brings together research in the fields of consciousness studies, meme theory and neuro-science to suggest that the self is historically and socially constructed in ways that profoundly af-fect what we mean by media research. We think much less than we believe, we misunderstand the relationship between our thoughts and actions, and we lack the unified consciousness that we usu-ally take for granted. We do not have ideas; rather we might claim that ideas have us. In Daniel Dennett’s term, we exist primarily as “centres of narrative gravity”.