From “From Memes to Mashups: Creating Content from Content.”:

“William Fisher in Promises to Keep describes digital technology as offering “semiotic democracy” which gives consumers power of cultural meaning making” p87

Semiotic Democracy is a phrase first coined by media studies professor John Fiske. He defines it as the “delegation of the production of meanings and pleasures to [television’s] viewers.” What Fiske means by this is instead of being mindless drones to the television, viewers in fact give their own meaning to what they are watching. In the context of the quote above and in relations to memes, when we take in memes and other such media, we are able to give it our own meaning. This in turn results in the creation of new memes, as we take meaning from a meme and replicate it using our meaning, which can form a new meme that appears to be patterned from the previous one.