Intertextuality and cosmopolitanism in cyberspace

De-contextualized canonic references (e.g. Romeo and Juliet as a symbol of happy ever-lasting love) characterize Internet language. Use of such memes - minimal units of cultural memory - is one of the major factors enabling virtual communities, made up of people from different cultural backgrounds, to function as embodiments of true cosmopolitan communities. Internet, as a new model of communication, and particularly virtual communities, challenge the theory of intertextuality in their disregard for the 'shared knowledge' principle and the peculiar way in which they reestablish the traditional terms of intertextuality: author, reader, text, context.