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Digital Cultures of Political Participation: Internet Memes and the Discursive Delgitimization of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Candidates
... Semiotics is the study of signs, including how these signs are used to represent ideas, concepts, and reality within a communication context (Davis et al., 2016;Jenkins, 2014;Purba et al., 2023). In digital communications, particularly the process of turning political discourse into memes, known as memefication, semiotic representations function as cultural artifacts on social media (Blommaert & Varis, 2015;Ross & Rivers, 2017;Wiggins & Bowers, 2015). These artifacts reflect broader trends and shifts in how information is consumed, interpreted, and disseminated in contemporary society, such as the increasing reliance on visual communication and the blurring of boundaries between serious and humorous content (Gal et al., 2016;Watts, 2003;Wiggins, 2019).. Transitioning to a current example, the controversy surrounding the 2024 Indonesian Presidential Election has been particularly intense. ...
... Previous research on political discourse legitimacy and (de)legitimization has been conducted (Ananda & Sari, 2021;Harbo, 2022;Reyes, 2011;Ross & Rivers, 2017). Against this backdrop, the research discusses memes from a semiotic perspective, which operate at multiple levels of meaning. ...
... Through the lens of semiotics, signs in memes, including images, texts, and their mutual relationships, are deciphered to reveal underlying messages that challenge or uphold societal norms and power structures (Berger, 2014;Shifman, 2013a;Wiggins, 2019;. One of the main strategies in the process of (de)legitimization in memes is the use of intertextuality, as Bahtin in Ross & Rivers (2017) and Tsakona (2018), where memes reference and build on other cultural texts and symbols to create new meanings (Allen, 2011;Vaara, 2014). For example, during political campaigns, meme creators create memes that mock a candidate's mistakes, or policies can spread quickly online, shaping public perception and significantly influencing voter behavior. ...
Internet memes, as artifacts of digital culture, quickly spread political ideas and critiques, transcending traditional media. Despite their prevalence, understanding how memes use semiotic elements and (de)legitimization strategies to shape political narratives on social media is limited. This research investigates how semiotic representations and (de)legitimization processes materialize in political discourse through social media memes. Using Van Leeuwen's (2005, 2007) framework of social semiotics and (de)legitimization strategies, we analyzed the visual and textual elements of 47 memes collected from January to July 2024; we selected 11 memes that represent Van Leeuwen's (de)legitimization strategies. The study revealed that memes convey complex political messages using semiotic resources, including color, gesture, and text. Intertextuality, humor, irony, rationalization, and moral evaluation are commonly used to criticize or support political figures and ideologies. This highlights the dynamic role of social media in political communication, where memes rapidly influence public perception. The findings emphasize the importance of understanding semiotic and rhetorical strategies in political communication analysis. The study contributes to the discourse of digital political communication by showing how memes, as cultural artifacts, shape political narratives and legitimacy. The research has significant implications for political strategists, communicators, and academics interested in the intersection of media, politics, and culture.
... In recent years, international relations (IR) and political communication researchers have begun to investigate how humor is used to legitimize and delegitimize political ideas and people in various contexts (e.g., Crilley & Chatterje-Doody, 2021;Laaksonen et al., 2021;Ross & Rivers, 2017). We extend this strand by integrating the study of humor styles into the literature and exploring how both legitimization and delegitimization through humor occur during a campaign period. ...
... We extend this strand by integrating the study of humor styles into the literature and exploring how both legitimization and delegitimization through humor occur during a campaign period. Studies on discursive legitimation have suggested that humor is a strong vehicle in political power struggles, as it can be used to justify and legitimize arguments and views, but also to delegitimize them (e.g., Koivukoski, 2022;Reyes, 2011;Ross & Rivers, 2017;Van Leeuwen, 2007). Populist radical right actors seem to be particularly keen on employing humor on social media to ridicule their opponents (Gonawela et al., 2018;Nikunen, 2015) and to strategically mainstream their arguments (e.g., Hakoköngäs et al., 2020;McSwiney & Sengul, 2024). ...
... In addition to capturing attention, it can be strategically applied to construct political realities. Humor can be used to (de)legitimize actions, ideas, institutions, and individual representatives of institutions, such as politicians (Davis et al., 2016;Ross & Rivers, 2017). Legitimization is understood here as the justification of actions, ideas, and people through discourse (Reyes, 2011;Van Leeuwen, 2007). ...
A prevalent aspect of contemporary digital campaigning is the use of humor to attract attention, elicit amusement, and mark group boundaries. This study investigates the humor in digital campaigns during two recent Finnish parliamentary elections, focusing on how different styles of humor are used to (de) legitimize political ideas and actors. Our original dataset consists of 125,604 posts by 1262 candidates on Facebook six months before the 2019 and 2023 election days. Using Facebook's haha reactions and manual coding to annotate humor style, we focused on 729 posts with seemingly intentional humor by candidates. We show how different parties and individual candidates used humor to varying degrees and in different styles. Overall, the proportion of humorous posts was not high, but the populist radical right Finns Party candidates used humor by far the most, and their style was primarily aggressive , aimed at delegitimizing the incumbent government, political opponents, and their reference groups. Candidates from other major parties also used some humor, but overall the tone was more positive. Some of these candidates were profiled as "humor specialists" who produced similar combinations of ridicule and anti-elitism as the Finns Party candidates or, alternatively, focused on disseminating self-deprecating and affiliative humor. Affiliative and self-deprecating humor was used to foster closeness, ordinariness, and spontaneity, thus legitimizing oneself as a relatable candidate. The paper discusses how candidates use humor strategically to stand out in a competition for attention between candidates, and elaborates on the implications of using different humor styles in strategic political communication.
... Sebagai mekanisme kontrol sosial, meme berfungsi dalam berbagai cara, termasuk menyoroti pelanggaran norma, mengkritik kebijakan publik, atau menantang struktur kekuasaan. Misalnya, meme yang membahas isu-isu politik sering digunakan untuk mengkritik kebijakan pemerintah atau perilaku elit politik, memanfaatkan humor dan ironi untuk menarik perhatian masyarakat luas (Ross & Rivers, 2017). Dalam hal ini, meme tidak hanya bertindak sebagai medium ekspresi individu tetapi juga sebagai ruang diskursif kolektif yang memungkinkan penggunanya untuk menyampaikan protes atau ketidakpuasan tanpa risiko langsung. ...
... Penelitian terdahulu menunjukkan bahwa meme sering digunakan sebagai media ekspresi masyarakat terhadap isu-isu tertentu, termasuk ketidakpuasan terhadap kebijakan pemerintah atau perilaku sosial yang dianggap menyimpang (Dynel, 2020;Nissenbaum & Shifman, 2018). Meskipun demikian, sebagian besar studi hanya berfokus pada aspek hiburan dan viralitas meme, tanpa mengkaji secara mendalam elemen wacana visual yang merepresentasikan kontrol sosial (Ross & Rivers, 2017). Hal ini menciptakan celah penelitian (research gap) yang signifikan, yaitu kurangnya analisis komprehensif tentang bagaimana meme merepresentasikan dan memengaruhi norma sosial dalam budaya digital. ...
Meme internet telah berkembang menjadi salah satu bentuk komunikasi digital yang paling berpengaruh, memainkan peran signifikan dalam membentuk opini publik, merepresentasikan budaya populer, dan menyampaikan pesan sosial. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji bagaimana meme digunakan sebagai mekanisme kontrol sosial dalam budaya digital. Menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan studi literatur (library research), penelitian ini menganalisis wacana visual dalam meme internet sebagai alat untuk mengonstruksi, menegosiasikan, atau mempertanyakan norma sosial. Data dianalisis melalui pendekatan wacana kritis dengan fokus pada elemen visual dan teks yang menyertainya, yang mencerminkan dinamika kekuasaan, ideologi, dan resistensi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa meme tidak hanya berfungsi sebagai media hiburan, tetapi juga memiliki dimensi politik dan sosial yang kompleks. Meme dapat menjadi alat untuk memperkuat kontrol sosial melalui humor yang menyasar perilaku menyimpang atau nilai-nilai yang dianggap tidak sesuai. Di sisi lain, meme juga digunakan untuk melawan otoritas atau membongkar struktur kekuasaan melalui ironi dan satire. Representasi visual dalam meme sering kali memperkuat stereotip tertentu, tetapi juga dapat menjadi ruang subversif untuk memprotes ketidakadilan. Dalam konteks budaya digital yang semakin terfragmentasi, meme memiliki kekuatan unik untuk menjangkau audiens luas secara cepat, menciptakan ruang diskusi yang dinamis di antara kelompok masyarakat. Penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa meme merupakan bentuk komunikasi yang multifaset dalam budaya digital modern, sekaligus alat yang dapat dimanfaatkan untuk kontrol sosial maupun resistensi. Studi ini menawarkan perspektif baru terhadap peran meme dalam kajian budaya dan komunikasi kontemporer.
... Images are often recycled, leading to the emergence of meme families with distinct recurring features or quiddities (Segev et al., 2015). While some memes focus on simple humor, others tackle serious issues such as political participation, environmental communication, and mental health, highlighting that memes should not be equated solely with jokes (Akram et al., 2020;Huntington, 2016;Milner, 2013;Ross & Rivers, 2017, 2019Zhang & Pinto, 2021). ...
... One of the key findings relates to how fluency effects, which have been shown to affect perceptions of truth, play a role in meme appreciation. As memes often carry complex social and political messages (Ross & Rivers, 2017;Zhang & Pinto, 2021), the insights provided by this research can inform digital literacy initiatives. By becoming aware of how fluency effects work, users can better identify when they might be favoring certain memes or digital content simply because it is easy to process rather than because it carries a deeper or more truthful message. ...
Internet memes are multimodal digital artifacts that pervade social media platforms. Despite their global popularity as powerful communication devices, their significance in empirical aesthetics remains understudied. In this exploratory study, we collected data from N = 1,153 participants to uncover the cognitive, emotional, and social factors influencing the consumption and appreciation of internet memes. Participants rated 300 user-generated memes, providing their overall ratings, evaluating nine cognitive features, and reporting the intensities of 16 emotional categories. Exploratory factor analysis revealed five latent factors: humor, fluency, disfluency, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Humor, amusement, and lack of boredom emerged as robust predictors, while positive emotions like adoration, satisfaction, and compassion also increased ratings. A balance between fluency and disfluency was found to be important for successful internet memes, whereas negative emotions (e.g., anger, disgust, and frustration) significantly decreased the overall ratings. This study highlights the potential of internet memes for research in empirical aesthetics and media psychology, shedding light on the cognitive and emotional factors underlying meme consumption and appreciation.
... The presence of political memes, memes focusing on political issues or subjects, in digital spaces, especially on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, is increasingly attracting scholarly attention in the field of political communication (Chen, 2016;Ross & Rivers, 2017;Shifman, 2014;Sreekumar & Vadrevu, 2013). This is especially relevant in the context of the evolving role of social media as the primary news source. ...
... However, most prior studies are qualitative (Chen, 2016;Lambrecht, 2023;Sreekumar & Vadrevu, 2013) and meme-content analysis (Bülow & Johann, 2023;Moody-Ramirez & Church, 2019) with limited empirical attempt to draw attention to the relationship between the political meme exposure on social media and online political participation. Scholars emphasize that political communication on social media, especially through memes, profoundly influences democratic participation (Ross & Rivers, 2017;Shifman, 2014). Exposure to political memes often spurs individuals to engage more deeply with political issues and partake in discussions, thereby boosting political participation. ...
While numerous studies have explored the participatory benefits of social media use for political participation, the empirical literature on the mobilizing role of political memes is nearly absent. In addition, most of the attention has been on Western democratic contexts. By employing survey data from an Asian context—Singapore—this study scrutinizes the impact of exposure to political memes in the interplay between political use of social media and online political participation. In addition, it investigates the contingent role of political cynicism. First, the results show that political social media use is associated with online political participation and that association is mediated by exposure to political memes. Further, moderation analyses indicate that social media use provides participatory gains only for individuals exhibiting low political cynicism. However, when such social media use facilitates exposure to political memes, it primarily mobilizes those with high political cynicism into active online political participation. The results suggest that memes can mobilize disengaged groups into active participation.
... 106). By delegitimising, social actors or actions are consistently portrayed as controversial, unethical, troublesome, deviant, or undesirable (see Ross and Rivers, 2017;Tiainen, 2017;Ross, 2020). Yu's (2022) article on Chinese single women and Liu's (2021) research on the legalisation of samesex marriages in Taiwan broaden van Leeuwen's (2008) theory of gender and sexuality. ...
... Despite these limitations, this study illustrates how ordinary people view homosexuality in China. At the same time, this study extends previous research on delegitimation in political discourse (Ross and Rivers, 2017;Tiainen, 2017) to sexist discourse, echoing Ross and Rivers (2019) argument that new media "aid in conveying a particular belief or ideology or in engaging with the participatory culture" (p. 9). ...
This article contributes to the understanding of public representations of homosexuality in China by focusing on the case of a homophobic textbook. College student Xixi sued Jinan University Press (JUP) in 2017 for classifying homosexuality as a psychosexual disorder. Three years later, a Chinese court dismissed Xixi’s lawsuit against the allegedly homophobic textbook published by JUP. The ruling elicited responses on Chinese social media that demonstrated the polarisation of public opinion regarding homosexuality. This article investigates discursive representations of homosexuality in online space by analysing the public discourse surrounding this problem. Using van Leeuwen’s discursive delegitimation strategies (i.e., authorisation, moral evaluation, rationalisation, and mythopoesis), 496 comments posted on Sina Weibo were employed and subjected to discourse analysis. According to our findings, these strategies contribute to public opposition to homosexuality, portrayed as unhealthy, infertile, disruptive, and corrosive. The article concludes by discussing the emerging sociocultural factors on Sina Weibo that influence the anti-homosexuality attitudes of Weibo users.
... In the field of political communication, Internet memes function as a tool for political lobbying, grassroots movements, social resistance, and political discussion (Ross & Rivers, 2017). Memes play a significant role in forming and disseminating political narratives in protests, as well as shaping political attitudes and behaviors (Ross & Rivers, 2017). ...
... In the field of political communication, Internet memes function as a tool for political lobbying, grassroots movements, social resistance, and political discussion (Ross & Rivers, 2017). Memes play a significant role in forming and disseminating political narratives in protests, as well as shaping political attitudes and behaviors (Ross & Rivers, 2017). By doing so, memes can both challenge hegemonic ideals (Vickery, 2014) or/ and function as political propaganda. ...
Visual political communication in the social media sphere is
increasingly valuable for its ability to more effectively persuade
viewers in this increasingly cluttered media landscape. Using
multi-model discourse analysis and following the theoretical
framework of Everyday Politics, this study focuses on a random
sample (N = 200) of user-generated Internet memes from Chinese
national youth propaganda campaign Youth Study. In addition,
the author observed the sharing and dissemination of these
memes in online public discussions. The findings reveal that
young participants maintain a varying distance from politics. They
employ strategies such as dark humor, hyperbole, contrast, and
appropriation of pop culture to portray two key roles – the
charming, brilliant followers and the abandoned, hunted
breakers, and to construct four main scenarios-cute threat,
humble beg, funny politics, and veiled resistance. This politicized
propaganda campaign is being transformed from state
aspirations to the creative daily cultural consumption of young
netizens. This analysis contributes to the scholarly literature on
youth subcultures, political mobilization, and visual propaganda
in post-socialist China.
... Also, studies on (de)legitimation in political communication have traditionally focused on constituted authorities and prominent politicians. Some of these studies have examined (de)legitimation in war discourse (Oddo 2011), revolutionary discourse (Ganaah, Nartey, and Bhatia 2023), presidential discourse (Reyes 2011), government social media communication (Hansson and Page 2023), and internet memes (Ross and Rivers 2017). Given the focus on constituted authorities and mainstream politicians, the exploitation of (de)legitimation by "unconstitutional authorities" like political activists, (self-appointed) secessionist leaders, and citizen vigilantes has received little attention in the literature, a notable exception being Igwebuike and Akoh's (2022) paper on the speeches of Nnamdi Kanu, the "supreme leader" of the Indigenous People of Biafra. ...
This article examines the delegitimation strategies used by Oliver Barker-Vormawor, political activist and the lead convener of Ghana's #FixTheCountry movement. The analysis of Barker-Vormawor's Facebook posts reveals that he employed three main delegitimation strategies to formulate a conviction rhetoric aimed at discrediting Ghana's governance under the presidency of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and validating his activism and the goals of his #FixTheCountry movement. These strategies are authorization, rationalization, and moral evaluation and they help Barker-Vormawor to construct himself as a patriot, a noble revolutionary, and a selfless leader who has the welfare of the Ghanaian people at heart. The study extends research on the construction of online activist discourses and demonstrates that research on the (de)legitimation mechanisms of "unconstitutional authorities" is necessary to enhance our understanding of (online) activist discourse and how contentious politics is conceptualized and performed.
... La dinámica desintermediada de las redes favorece la difusión de información falsa, inexacta o engañosa (Comisión Europea, 2018). A su vez, la polarización generada en estos entornos digitales crea un terreno fértil para las voces más extremistas (Benedicto, 2020), lo que favorece la introducción de desinformación, especialmente durante las campañas electorales, cuando el principal objetivo de la comunicación es atraer electores y ganar votos (Ross & Rivers, 2017). Esta situación constituye una amenaza global para la libertad y la democracia, y supone un gran desafío para Europa (Guerrero-Solé et al., 2023). ...
El avance de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación ha facilitado la difusión de noticias falsas, especialmente en el ámbito político. Para abordar este problema, los Estados han implementado diversas medidas legislativas para proteger a los ciudadanos. Sin embargo, estos esfuerzos se enfrentan al creciente auge de la ultraderecha, particularmente en el sur de Europa, que ha favorecido la propagación de diversas formas de desinformación. Este fenómeno supone una amenaza global para la libertad y la democracia, convirtiéndose en un desafío importante para Europa. Esta investigación analiza, utilizando como método el análisis de contenido, las publicaciones realizadas en Instagram durante las campañas electorales de 2022 y 2023por los perfiles dela ultraderecha en España (Vox) e Italia (Fratelli d'Italia). Los resultados revelan que los mensajes de las formaciones de extrema derecha en esta plataforma son directos, carecen de contexto informativo y apelan emocionalmente. A través de grafismos y filtros, Abascal y Meloni se erigen dentro de los perfiles de sus partidos como líderes icónicos, mediáticos y patrióticos. Además, las publicaciones más agresivas, centradas en temas como inmigración, seguridad o libertad de expresión, son las más virales. En cambio, aquellas que mencionan a medios y critican a adversarios políticos obtienen un apoyo en likes que dobla Vox sobre Fratelli d'Italia
... According to Ross and Rivers (2017), memes are a grassroots method of communication that allows individuals to share and engage with a wide range of cultural, political, and social phenomena. Memes, with their inherent dynamism, have the unique potential to encompass the spirit of modern culture, acting as reflective mirrors that represent the prevailing attitudes, values, and challenges within a given group. ...
This study examined the communicative aspects of internet memes within the Nigerian context, focusing on the widespread and context-specific linguistic phenomenon captured by the viral slogan "No Gree for Anybody in 2024." While existing studies has extensively investigated different aspects of meme culture in Nigeria, there is a significant gap in the investigation of memes within the specific linguistic framework of the aforementioned slogan. This study therefore explored memes generated under this linguistic phenomenon, unraveling the ways in which they mirror and contribute to the expression of societal sentiments in the year 2024. Eighty memes, purposively sampled from Twitter and WhatsApp that prominently feature the slogan "No gree for anybody in 2024" was used for the study. Using multimodal social semiotics as the theoretical framework, our analysis revealed intriguing insights across five distinct categories. Each category, ranging from the portrayal of challenges in society, and expressive stances on societal issues to individual empowerment and alternative approaches to challenges, provided a unique perspective on how memes serve as dynamic reflections of societal sentiments, values, and challenges. Through humour, satire, and visual wit, memes become storytellers, weaving narratives that mirror the highs, lows, and absurdities of the Nigerian experience. This study illustrates the profound impact of memes in contemporary communication, shedding light on their role as cultural barometers and agents of social change. As we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of online culture, memes stand as vibrant reflections of our collective consciousness, shaping and reflecting the spirit of the time.
... Интернет-мемы сравниваются с «троянским конем», умело маскирующим свое истинное назначение [там же]. В процессе передачи мемы способны преобразовываться, обрастать новыми смыслами, становясь творческим продуктом в результате коллективного прироста мнений [Ross, Rivers, 2017]. ...
Исследование посвящено изучению особенностей потенциала «мягкой силы» интернет-мемов, ограниченных тематикой COVID-19. Представлены результаты анализа восприятия интернет-мемов молодежью 14-35 лет с учетом различий по полу. К обсуждению предлагаются тепловые карты, полученные в ходе работы с респондентами на айтрекере Tobii Pro Scerum (150 Hz), позволяющие оценить фиксацию взгляда испытуемого. Работа с группой респондентов позволила определить ключевые вербально-визуальные элементы интернет-мемов, удерживающие внимание респондентов. В исследовании сделаны выводы о реакции респондентов на стимульный материал в зависимости от возраста и пола. Определены смысловые доминанты мемов и степень их считываемости, на основании чего отмечено, что в большей степени воздействию рассматриваемых интернет-мемов подвержены молодежные группы в возрасте 14―17 и 18―24 лет, так как их восприятие характеризуется повышенным буквализмом и эмоциональностью. Различия по признаку пола менее выражены, чем различия между возрастными группами. Благодарность. Работа была выполнена при поддержке Российского фонда фундаментальных исследований в рамках гранта «Soft power-потенциал интернет-мемов: ключевые механизмы воздействия» № 21-011-32197 опн_мол.
... Nissenbaum and Shifman (2017: 13) argue derogatory internet memes in particular serve as discursive weapons, 'frequently deployed as a rhetorical device to express hostility'. Similarly, Ross and Rivers (2017) demonstrate this pattern in their analysis of internet memes, conveying negative and delegitimizing views of 2016 U.S. presidential candidates. In this context, internet memes have evolved beyond mere comedic or entertaining content, they have transformed into powerful tools for exerting influence, shaping opinions, and engaging in ideological clashes within the digital realm. ...
This study examines how socially and culturally ingrained visual semiotic resources are used to demonstrate netizens’ affinities with ‘the people’ and dislikes of ‘the elite’ in expressions of online and bottom-up national populism in China. Using a methodological framework that integrates multimodal discourse analysis with a study of ideology, semiotics, and intertextuality, we study ‘weaponized’ Internet memes that were generated during three Diba Expeditions in 2016, 2018 and 2019. We identify three major social-culturally embedded visual semiotic themes: the Jiong playful style, nostalgia, and the strategic use of colour. These themes reflect the negotiation between populist dynamics, emerging online in China to express dissatisfaction with elites and nationalist appeals which emerge to push back against external ‘threats’. This study enhances our understanding of populist visual mobilization and visual protest by examining the Diaosi self-image constructed by the people in online and bottom-up populism in China. Traditionally, populist discourse has depicted ‘the people’ as pure, hardworking, and morally upright, mediated through the rhetoric of populist leaders and parties in top-down approaches. However, our research reveals a more complex and self-reflective portrayal, where the Diaosi subculture presents ‘the people’ as vulnerable, marginalized, and socio-economically disadvantaged. This self-construction challenges conventional populist narratives and highlights the dynamic and context-specific nature of populist identities.
... Instead, social media research has tended to focus on issues of polarization and misinformation (Dunaway, 2021) from media ecology and cognitive bias perspectives. There has been some previous work using legitimation to investigate political fake news (Igwebuike and Chimuanya, 2020), and delegitimation via internet memes (Ross and Rivers, 2017), however, none of this work has focused on screenshots. In order to add to this body of literature on screenshots, the key research questions guiding this study are: R1: How are screenshots manipulated as legitimation and affiliation strategies in social media discourse? ...
This article explores the use of screenshots as a form of visual evidence on social media platforms. It considers their role in YouTube videos that spread misinformation and disinformation about the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire and an internet hoax, the Momo Challenge. The article draws on two social semiotic frameworks, legitimation (Van Leeuwen in ‘Legitimation in discourse and communication, 2007) and affiliation (Knight in ‘Evaluating experience in funny ways’, 2013, and Zappavigna in ‘Searchable Talk and Social Media Metadiscourse’, 2018), to analyse how screenshots and accompanying voiceovers construe technological authority and propagate social values. Seven key forms of screenshots are identified in the dataset, alongside the key social bonds that are made visually salient in the screenshots. Overall, this research contributes to how we understand the role of screenshots in instances of misinformation and disinformation, highlighting the importance of identifying the affiliation potential of the screenshot in order to determine its veracity.
... In geographical or political spaces other than Romania, memes have been established as a legitimate avenue of political participation or even an instrument for manipulation (Moreno-Almeida, 2021). They can be employed by various polity actors with very varied aims, given their affective potential and their effectiveness at influencing political agendas: memes can be -and have been -instrumentalised for promoting grassroots movements, amplifying the messages of extremist factions, perpetrating demeaning or abusive tropes or stereotypes about minorities, and in misinformation and disinformation (Ross & Rivers, 2017;Makhortykh & González Aguilar, 2020;Chagas, 2023). Recent experimental designs have attempted to determine the variables that influence the effectiveness of a meme (Bülow & Johann, 2023). ...
The aim of this paper is to define political memes as belonging to the genre of political satire and part of Romanian political culture, to outline their characteristics and functionality, and to indicate that the phenomenon of political meme-sharing is a cultural phenomenon with growing significance based on the highly affective usage of memes that allow for the recontextualization of past political events in accordance with the new realities of the Romanian political and cultural space. Using the case study that is included, which takes into account how the awareness of the political context is the basis of the memes and the features of the memes themselves, the author shows that memes can be considered a type of informal, non-conventional form of political participation and considers this in relation to the political landscape of a post-communist country, thus determining that memes are a novel element that should be considered when dealing with civic culture at large, and digital civic culture specifically.
... So, it is pertinent to explore the memes role as a communication tool, and to assess the effects of online participation on offline engagement of meme users. The fleeting nature and minimal scale of memes, media studies scholarship, despite the transformative importance of digital media, still not take the broader cultural impact of meme seriously (Ross & Rivers, 2017). Contemporary internet culture including social media and discussion platforms are introducing internet memes as an emerging discourse. ...
The concurrent digital media environment stipulated as participatory media culture refers to the active participation of citizens in politics by using Facebook memes as a communication tool. This research appraises the role of political Facebook memes as a communication tool to further investigate the effects of slacktivism on the offline engagement of young Facebook users of age (18 to 36) studying at university level from 5 metropolitan cities of Pakistan,
under uses and gratification theory as theoretical grounds. By utilizing a quantitative approach, a self-structured close-ended questionnaire was employed to get responses from 1671 respondents using simple random sampling to understand the perceptions of meme consumers. The findings suggest that Political Facebook memes effectively provide information on political issues make politics interesting for youth, and relax mind through satire while pointing loopholes in the system, hence online engagement of users also leads them to offline engagement as it makes them interested in politics.
... Mythopoesis then resorts to moral or cautionary narratives, in which protagonists are rewarded or punished for engaging in socially (un)desirable activities (van Leeuwen, 2005). This framework has been extensively applied to understand how inclusion and exclusion are produced through norms, values, beliefs, and practices in media and communication (Ross and Rivers, 2017). De-celebrification can also be understood from this perspective. ...
The deconstruction of celebrity persona reflects public concerns within rapidly changing societies. Bringing perspectives from de-legitimation and anti-fandom, this paper investigates how Wanwan, a controversial Chinese Internet celebrity (wanghong), was de-celebrified as a bragger, sugar baby, and two-faced traitor by her anti-fans. Anti-fans condemned Wanwan for her self-glorification, sex trading for material goods, and immorality as an elite. Despite demonstrating anti-fan efforts to seek representative justice online, their discourses are problematic for bolstering classist, neoliberal feminist, populist, and moral perfectionist ideologies. A more serious concern pertains to the politicization of personal animosity through de-celebrification, wherein anti-fans try to exploit state power to cancel the celebrities they dislike. In addition to validating a discursive approach that fleshes out (de-)celebrification studies, this paper refines our understanding of the politics of dislike by unraveling the complex socio-political dynamics behind anti-fandom and de-celebrification.
... Third, studies differ in terms of what kind of modalities are considered in interpretation: whether the focus is mainly on verbal/textual dataas is the case in the majority of linguistic work on blame phenomenaor is attention paid to visual/multimodal semiotic resources used by participants in blame games. For instance, studies have demonstrated how internet memes are used to delegitimise political candidates (Ross and Rivers, 2017), how protest music is used on social media, such as TikTok (Sadler, 2022), and how government officeholders combine verbal, visual, and auditory cues in their communication to present themselves in a positive light and mystify aspects of social reality that could attract blame (Hansson, 2018c). ...
In this introductory article, we provide a brief overview of discourse-analytic literature that deals with blame phenomena in politics. Our aim is to draw attention to the diversity of work done in this field and demonstrate how these studies may be classified based on four characteristics: (1) what kind of blame issues are addressed, (2) whether the focus is on blaming or blame avoidance, (3) which media and genres are included in the dataset, and (4) which methodological approaches are adopted.
... Recent studies have also explored the influence of memes on shaping political attitudes. Andrew and Damian (2017) emphasized the role of memes in groups with shared ideologies, particularly in creating a negative image of Trump and Clinton during the 2016 elections. ...
... Annen forskning indikerer også at det å lage og dele memes tilknyttet eksempelvis klimasaken kan øke et individs intensjon for å bidra med sivilt engasjement til saken i digital kontekst (Zhang & Pinto, 2020;Ross & Rivers, 2019;Elgaaied-Gambier & Mandler, 2021;Mayes & Center, 2022). Atter andre forskere har undersøkt hvordan memes preget presidentvalgene i USA i 2016 (Ross & Rivers, 2017), sett på bruken av memes på internettforum befolket av mennesker på ytrehøyresiden i det politiske spekteret (Prochazka & Blommaert, 2021;Colley & Moore, 2022), og undersøkt hvordan memes fungerer i en klasseromskontekst, blant annet for å øke kritisk tenkning i møte med ulike budskap unge ser på nett (Wells, 2018;Elmore & Coleman, 2019). Digital deltagelse, som memes er en del av, kobles også i offentlige dokumenter på som en måte å laere elever om deltagelse i demokratiet (Meld. ...
Mediene griper sterkere inn på de fleste livsområder enn for bare noen år tilbake. Denne antologien utforsker den økende betydningen av medier i ulike aspekter av livet, spesielt i en tid preget av globalisering, digitalisering og raske endringer. Bidragene tar for seg hvordan mediene påvirker oppvekst og utdanning, med fokus på temaer som uroligheter, digital krigføring, pandemi, kunstig intelligens, adaptiv læring og utfordringer knyttet til autentisitet og tillit. Boken er relevant for studenter, lærere, forskere og andre som er interessert i mediepedagogiske perspektiver, inkludert mediesosialisering og undervisning om og med medier. Den passer godt som pensum for bachelor- og masterstudier innen pedagogikk, lærerutdanninger, medieutdanninger og andre utdanninger som tar for seg bruk av medier og deres betydning for samfunn og utdanning.
... Delegitimization as a discourse strategy has been extensively researched regarding political discourse (Ross & Rivers, 2017). It is typically defined relative to its counterpart-the discourse strategy of legitimization. ...
Despite its recent formal steps taken to ensure more gender equality, Montenegro still has a rather patriarchal culture. A United Nations Development Program (UNDP) supported study (2021) found that 90% of Montenegrin female politicians have experienced discrimination due to their gender, and 70% have experienced violence during their political work. Against such a background, this study explores sexist humor targeting female Montenegrin politicians in public Facebook comments. Comments that elicited humorous reactions were considered humorous, whereas those that reduced female politicians to sexual objects, presented them as caricatures conforming to traditional gender roles in Montenegrin society, or played on the stereotype of women's inferiority, were regarded as sexist. Although a significant share of the commentary was sexist, most often such comments were not recognized as humorous. In those that were recognized as humorous, the most prevalent themes included women's bodies and appearance, the sexual objectification of female politicians, personality flaws stereotypically associated with women (such as lacking intelligence or being evil), and encouraging women to prioritize family over politics.
... Consider some examples. Ross and Rivers (2017) state, "Internet memes can be defined as 'the propagation of content such as jokes, Reinforming memes rumor, videos, or websites from one person to others via the internet' (Shifman, 2013, p. 362)." Then, they characterize information as a unique issue: "It is challenging to measure the impact and spread of such influence through Internet memes, but it is essential that we are aware of their potential for ideological influence in the current climate of almost unrestricted information sharing. ...
Purpose
Our purpose is to reconnect memetics to information, a persistent and unclear association. Information can contribute across a span of memetic research. Its obscurity restricts conversations about “information flow,” the connections between “form” and “content,” as well as many other topics. As information is involved in cultural activity, its clarification could focus memetic theories and applications.
Design/methodology/approach
Our design captures theoretical nuance in memetics by considering a long standing conceptual issue in memetics: information. A systematic review of memetics is provided by making use of the term information across literature. We additionally provide a citation analysis and close readings of what “information” means within the corpus.
Findings
Our initial corpus is narrowed to 128 pivotal memetic publications. From these publications, we provide a citation analysis of memetic studies. Theoretical directions of memetics in the informational context are outlined and developed. We outline two main discussion spaces, survey theoretical interests and describe where and when information is important to memetic discussion. We also find that there are continuities in goals which connect Dawkins’s meme with internet meme studies.
Originality/value
To our knowledge, this is the broadest, most inclusive review of memetics conducted, making use of a unique approach to studying information-oriented discourse across a corpus. In doing so, we provide information researchers areas in which they might contribute theoretical clarity in diverse memetic approaches. Additionally, we borrow the notion of “conceptual troublemakers” to contribute a corpus collection strategy which might be valuable for future literature reviews with conceptual difficulties arising from interdisciplinary study.
... 5). Therefore, the creation and dissemination of meme-based content by political leaders serves as an effective means of capturing user attention (Ross & Rivers, 2017). ...
This thesis delves into the captivating intersection of politics and entertainment, unraveling the intricate dynamics shaped by contemporary media systems in the realm of political communication. In an era characterized by unprecedented technological advancements and evolving media landscapes, the convergence of politics and entertainment has become a focal point of societal discourse.
... Dari kondisi seperti itu para seniman membuat inovasi baru dengan (Yastuti et al., 2017). Kehadiran budaya digital juga memudahkan kegiatan sehari-hari bagi masyarakatnya seperti partisipasi sosial bagi banyak orang yang sebelumnya mungkin sulit dilakukan karen keterbatasan ruang (Ross & Rivers, 2017b). Teknologi yang hadir tentu dapat membuat kegiatan sehari-hari masyarakat lebih efesien dan tepat waktu (Ross & Rivers, 2017a (Ruswandi, 1995 (Foley, 2018). ...
Artikel ini membahas mengenai pengaruh budaya digital yang berdampak pada perubahan kesenian, Kanca Panglima grup dalam inovasi wayang catur menjadi objek dalam artikel ini. Bentuk penelitian ini adalah deskriptif kualitatis dengan teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah observasi, wawancara, serta studi literatur. Teori perubahan bentuk seni menjadi teori yang digunakan dalam membedah permasalahan artikel ini. Hasilnya menunjukan bahwa perubahan budaya menjadi pengaruh dalam perubahan bentuk sajian ‘wayang catur’ serta keberlangsungan seni bergantung kepada senimannya. Kreativitas yang dilakukan Kanca merekonstruksi seni wayang catur menjadi sebuah pertunujukan visual. Dengan begitu, kesenian wayang catur dapat kembali dikenal dan dinikmati oleh masyarakat, khususnya Sunda.
In the digital age, warfare has extended into the online realm, transforming the information sphere into a critical battlefield. Information warfare has become a crucial component of modern conflict, giving rise to diverse strategies and tactics. This article examines memetic warfare within the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, focusing on the battle for truth against Russian information pollution. Rooted in the Maskirovka strategy, Russia constructs false realities to mislead and manipulate audiences. In response, defensive memetic warfare has emerged, using memes infused with humour, sarcasm, and irony to sway public opinion, counter falsehoods, and promote media literacy. This study explores the role of the civic resistance group North Atlantic Fellas Organization, a decentralised movement, in combating pro-Russian narratives and targeting Russian information pollution. Through digital ethnographic research and contextual analysis, the study examines NAFO’s meme campaigns concerning significant issues indirectly affecting Ukraine, such as Russian propaganda, US President Trump, the US Republican party, and Russia’s network of allied states and actors.
This study examines the use of memes as part of China’s digital diplomacy between 2019 and 2022. Few studies have examined how memes are used to advance state interests in relation to China’s public diplomacy. In this context, the main objective of this study is to provide a preliminary but comprehensive analysis of the content, objectives and novel practice of using memes to communicate China’s foreign policy goals on Twitter. To achieve this, we conduct multiple analyses through a combination of computational techniques and manual coding. The dataset comprises 725,000 tweets from 68 Chinese diplomats’ accounts and 13 state media accounts. Drawing on a theoretical framework regarding the use of humour in international relations, our findings reveal that Chinese diplomats’ use of images in their tweets resulted in significantly more retweets and tweets featuring playful memes achieved a high degree of virality. These memes employed sarcasm to amplify ideological contention, and in doing so, challenged traditional diplomatic decorum.
The article is interested in the role of humour employed in memes on X by the government of Ukraine in the war following the invasion by Russia in 2022. It brings insights from cultural and humour studies as well as psychology into politics and shows how and what kind of humour the government around President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a professional comedian, uses in their meme communication via social media in order to communicate with the public, seek global legitimacy and support, as well as depict and attack the enemy. It shows that the government uses a broad set of different humour types, styles and theories while completely avoiding self-deprecation as a humour style and humour which corresponds to relief theory. While this absence may not seem surprising at first in a situation of war in which there is a need to maintain tension towards the enemy, to galvanize support and avoid emphasizing own faults which might make it appear weak, the void of such forms of humour should be reconsidered. While this absence may not seem surprising during a war – a time in which there is a need to maintain tension towards the enemy, to galvanize support and to avoid emphasizing one’s own faults so as not to give the appearance of weakness – the void of such forms of humour should be reconsidered. The article calls for further research on the benefits and limitations of laughter in war. It argues that both relief theory and self-deprecation can be effective tools of crisis communication as these forms of humour can contribute to the portrayal of confidence and strength, while also providing a means of dealing with the difficult and traumatic experiences the population is facing in times of war.
In the ever-evolving landscape of online communication, memes have emerged as potent tools for influencing public opinion. This qualitative study explores the motivations, intentions, and strategic approaches of six meme creators through semi-structured in-depth interviews. It analyses how meme creators perceive and recognize their evolving roles as political actors, challenging traditional communication paradigms, resonating with audiences, driving conversations, and democratizing political engagement. The results reveal meme creators’ nuanced understanding of their content’s educational potential and ability to sway and influence perceptions. Meme creators view themselves as agents of change and perceive their role as crucial in the landscape of contemporary political communication, where they can shape public discourse and influence collective attitudes. They strategically frame political messages and set agendas, viewing their work as a continuation of political satire’s rich tradition. This study highlights their awareness of the ethical complexities involved and analyses how these meme creators turned into modern political actors and grapple with concerns around the monetization of memes and the spread of misinformation. Overall, this research offers a rare glimpse into the world of meme creators as it sheds light on their innovative strategies, their role in democratizing media, and their ability to transform the way we engage with politics. It underscores the transformative potential of memes and highlights that the meme creators’ work is not just about humor, but about making a significant impact on political engagement and public discourse.
Cet article propose une analyse pragmatico-énonciative des procédés énonciatifs des mèmes politiques issus du compte Twitter « Mèmes de gauche » dans le but de montrer que les postures énonciatives construites dans les mèmes permettent d’assoir le discours mémétique sur une autorité, sociale et partagée, reconnue comme légitime par les usagers. À la suite de la présentation du cadre théorique et, notamment, de la notion de « partageabilité » et d’un aperçu des logiques de diffusion des mèmes politiques, il sera question d’analyser la confrontation énonciative entre points de vue dans les différentes catégories de mèmes identifiées.
Political memes are ubiquitous in social media. They are easy to make, alter and spread, and they are a funny way of sanctioning politicians. This paper seeks to analyze the satirical memes targeting Viorica Dăncilă and to explore the extent to which such memes could be considered a manifestation of political trivialization rather than of criticism. Drawing on qualitative methods of text and image analysis we ask: (1) how is humor constructed in political memes targeting Romania’s former prime minister, and (2) to what extent could the memes be considered either a form of political criticism or a matter of pure entertainment. Our findings show that the humor in the examined memes is largely offensive (including sexist and misogynistic), sometimes at the expense of humor display. We argue that such offensive content triggers a cancellation of the criticizing force of the memes and an amplification of their short-lived amusement value.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the “wine mom” phenomenon exploded in online spaces. This paper examines “wine mom” discourse in a Facebook support group for mothers in Hong Kong. We define the “wine mom” as a humorous memetic resource. It is culturally recognisable and associated with women’s (including mothers’) drinking. Drawing on 30 “wine mom” threads from the support group, we use interactional sociolinguistics and multimodal discourse analysis to examine humour performance and humour support in the data. We identify a range of linguistic and multimodal strategies that the support group members use to construct and respond to “wine mom” humour. A focus on particularly popular threads demonstrates that the members playfully blend advice-giving with genres such as breaking news. Humorous advice centres on various COVID-19-related practices and realities, including quarantining and self-testing. We discuss how by joking about wine and drinking, the women do more than being humorous: they build rapport and solidarity, and provide support to each other during the pandemic.
The relevance of the article is due, on the one hand, to the interest of linguists in the study of linguistic means and techniques of creating the comic in the media discourse, and, on the other, to the insufficient knowledge of comparison as a way of creating comic images of politicians. The paper identifies the types of comparative constructions involved in the creation of negative images of American politicians, classifies the objects of comparison and identifies the reasons for choosing these objects, which serve as a way of accentuating the negative characteristics of politicians.
The COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdown, powered by excessive mobile usage, resulted in a worldwide surge in pandemic memes. A populist form of humour-based communication, internet memes trigger sensitive social, cultural, economic and political discourses on social media. The relevance of memes in online communication is undeniable given their high digital intractability, virality and mass appeal. As a result, the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent events, as well as the creation of public narratives about the pandemic using the power of digital media, constitute an intriguing case in digital journalism. From an Indian perspective, this chapter investigated the function of memes in online communication and digital journalism during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Several recurring themes in the COVID-19 memes were analysed to map out the perception of life during the pandemic and the pandemic itself in popular memory on the Indian digital space. Using the thematic framework by Braun and Clarke, (2006), the scope of COVID-19 memes as popular artefacts of digital journalism in India was explored.
This study investigates international users’ reception of a dark-humour meme tweeted by Ukraine’s governmental Twitter (X) account on 7 December 2021 as part of its exceptional cultural practice of posting humorous memes. Tweeters’ responses to the ‘headaches meme’ are examined through a discourse-analytic lens. An emphasis is placed on the appreciation of the humour (emanating from the meme or its contextual embedding) and other forms of humour support demonstrated by its online indicators. The overarching aim is to distil and compare user reactions to the meme in two sociopolitical contexts—before and after the invasion of Ukraine that Russia mounted on 24 February 2022—based on two equal quote tweet samples. While the findings reveal a relative decrease in humour appreciation after the invasion, the same diversified reactions encompassing humour support or its lack and politically polarised discourses making for participatory digital warfare are detected in both parts of the dataset.
The current research endeavor extends scholarship on political satire and digital memes proposing a more nuanced semio-cognitive analytical framework for the innovative political image macro memes pertinent to The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (January 2016–December 2019) . Premised on Martynyuk and Melescchenko’s (2021) conceptualization of metaphtonymy and van Leeuwen’s (2007) (de)-legitimation strategies , a corpus of 159 image macro meme instances from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ’s (January 2016 to December 2019) has been examined to show how the semio-cognitive de-legitimation of Donald Trump and his administration is materialized through creative meme-inherent metaphtonymies. Key findings include the dominance of four meme-specific metaphtonymic patterns. In tandem, the overlapping semio-discursive de-legitimation strategies of authorization, moral evaluation, rationalization , and mythopoeisis are metaphtonymically encoded in the image macro memes of the show’s monologue to: (a) function as highly medium-specific expressions that respond to challenging events based on thematic and structural templates, and (b) provide a timely (and even reactionary) response to political debates, creating a negative view of Donald Trump to reduce his legitimacy as the US president.
The interpretation and interrelation of the concepts of “fact”, “meaning”, “term” throughout the 20th–21st centuries were constantly in the zone of interest of researchers: sociologists, philosophers, cultural scientists, linguists, lawyers, as well as writers and journalists. At the same time, this connection, outwardly understandable and logical, was understood as an increasingly complex composition, depending both on the peculiarities of human perception and on the social modeling of various kinds of messages to target audiences. This article examines the dynamics and current state of these ideas, connected, on the one hand, with the internetization and mediatization of society; and, on the other, motivated by the presence and strengthening of the global socio-political conjuncture at the interstate and other levels. The author’s research focuses on the problems of terrorism as the most acute and revealing. There is no unified internationally accepted definition of terrorism. To an even greater extent, this applies to social practice, in the process of which the perpetrators and customers of terrorist attacks are determined by interested parties in different ways, up to the complete opposite. The immediate facts of terror are interpreted in the same way, when the fixation of a real event is supplemented or completely replaced by a demonstration of its meaning. The article examines the prerequisites and modern practice of creating and subsequent application of factual, meaning and terms elements in the compositions of published messages. By analyzing the materials of Russian and Western mass media, the author explores the dynamic change in the goals and roles of these elements in influencing target audiences. In the course of the study, the hypothesis is put forward and confirmed that reports of acts of terror turn into an instrument of information warfare, and their semantic part acquires a dominant character. Technologies are being developed to verify the facts for authenticity and identify the primary goals of the authors of the messages. However, the priority form of counter-actions is the formation of stereotypical attitudes among target groups to the rejection of events, statements and their content designations in the media, qualified by the state as terrorist.
Ten years ago, Schill’s (2012) review article was published on the visual aspects of political communication aiming to increase research in this field. It seems that scholars have reacted to this call in the last decade. The present article argues that in the last ten years, visual political communication (VPC) has been affected by technological advances, and with the proliferation of the Internet and social media, political communication has become even more visual. As Schill’s (2012) article predated this period, a new review seems to be timely. To that end, a combination of a systematic and narrative review is provided to highlight the results and developments in this area. Findings suggest that the rise of social media has brought changes to VPC, which have been reflected in the literature by focusing on key concepts in contemporary political communication: personalization, populism, gender-related issues, and the effects of VPC on citizens, separately on social media and in television.
This introductory chapter details the goals of the book, defines the scope of political humor and the rhetorical tools through which this humor is circulated verbally, also presenting a brief theoretical approach guiding the subsequent chapters. This is followed by three sections addressing key aspects in the study and analysis of political humor, considered among the different contributions: First, that humoristic expressions related to politics can be employed for good and bad purposes, illustrated by a discussion of the role played by stereotypes and prejudice in creating ethno-national humor; second, that members of the public, the political elite, and the media employ humorous expressions in politics while using different means for different goals; third, humor about political matters is a highly contextual and subjective phenomenon that can be perceived differently by individuals, with different cultures shaping the content, nature, and characteristics of such humor. The chapter suggests that knowledge of political humor contributes to a better understanding of political rhetoric, information processing and organization, attitude formation and change, persuasion, and political engagement.
Political memes have become a common way for people to be exposed to political content and express their political views online. However, little is known about who shares political memes online or whether exposure to memes is associated with key attitudinal, emotional, and behavioral political outcomes. To address these gaps, this study uses data from a two-wave survey (YouGov) of American adults fielded during the 2020 U.S. presidential election ( N = 1800) to investigate (a) predictors of creating and sharing political memes on Facebook and (b) associated outcomes of exposure to political memes on Facebook. Results reveal that sharing political memes is a form of political expression employed by a variety of people in the United States, including political moderates and people both politically interested and noninterested. The data suggest that people who circulate political memes are motivated to make fun of politicians, but also to persuade and inform others in some cases. Results also highlight potential consequences of exposure to political memes, such as heightened online opinion expression, political participation, and anger toward the opposing presidential candidate. Taken together, the results provide insights into how people engage with memes and their associations with key political outcomes and offer an important foundation for future work on the effects of political memes.
Internet memes are multimodal digital artifacts that pervade social media platforms. Despite their global popularity as powerful communication devices, their significance in the cognitive sciences remains understudied. In this exploratory study, we collected data from N = 1,157 participants to uncover the cognitive and emotional factors influencing the consumption and appreciation of internet memes. Participants rated 300 user-generated memes, providing overall ratings, evaluating nine cognitive features, and reporting intensities of 16 emotional categories. Exploratory factor analysis revealed five latent factors: humor, fluency, disfluency, positive emotions, and negative emotions. In a cross-validated regression model, the five factors accurately predicted overall ratings of new internet memes within about a half-point margin (mean absolute error = 0.54). Humor, amusement, and lack of boredom emerged as robust predictors, while positive emotions like adoration, satisfaction, and compassion also played significant roles. A balance between fluency and disfluency was found to be important for successful internet memes, whereas negative emotions (e.g., anger, disgust, and frustration) significantly decreased overall ratings. This study highlights the potential of internet memes for research in empirical aesthetics, media psychology, and advertising, shedding light on the cognitive and emotional factors underlying meme consumption and appreciation.
This article relies on U.S. 2-wave panel data to examine the role of social media as a sphere for political expression and its effects on political participation. Informational uses of social media are expected to explain political expression on social media and to promote political participation. This study clarifies the effect of using social media for social interaction in fostering political expression and participation processes. Results indicate that social media news use has direct effects on offline political participation and indirect effects on offline and online political participation mediated via political expression. Furthermore, social media use for social interaction does not have direct influence in people's political engagement, but rather an indirect effect by means of citizens expressing themselves politically.
The appreciation of humor is arguably a fundamental aspect of social life. Yet passing jokes off as “just jokes” can have serious and negative intergroup consequences (e.g., discrimination; denial of rights). We review some recent findings concerning how group dominance motives are expressed in humor contexts through cavalier beliefs about humor. These beliefs legitimize and provide psychological cover to avoid the appearance of bias. We propose that humor and ridicule play a critical part of the delegitimization process, operating in tandem with processes such as dehumanization (representing others as animal-like and/or machine-like) and system justification (i.e., maintaining the status quo in terms of intergroup hierarchies). As such, humor plays a key role in the delegitimization of others that occurs in much of everyday life, such as in the workplace or schoolyard setting. Disparaging intergroup humor effectively rules social groups in as acceptable targets for devaluation, working in tandem with dehumanization processes that rule others out as targets worthy of protection. Several recommendations for practitioners and researchers are offered, including greater use of social media tools in tracking and understanding humor as a delegitimization strategy in real time, multilevel analysis of the person within their social context, and harnessing the power of humor to combat (not facilitate) prejudice and discrimination. We also urge prejudice researchers to devote greater attention to humor, ridicule, and joke-telling or risk falling into the bigot’s trap of passing humor off as “just jokes.”
This article explores the workings of memes as cultural capital in web-based communities. A grounded analysis of 4chan’s /b/ board reveals three main formulations of memes as capital, delineating them as subcultural knowledge, unstable equilibriums, and discursive weapons. While the first formulation follows well-documented notions about subcultural knowledge as a basis for boundary work, the latter two focus on the dualities intrinsic to Internet memes. The contradiction between following conventions and supplying innovative content leads to memes’ configuration as unstable equilibriums, triggering constant conflict about their “correct” use. Paradoxically, this struggle highlights collective identity, as it keeps shared culture at the center of discussion. Similarly, when memes are used as jabs at the most intense points of arguments, they function simultaneously as signifiers of superior authoritative status and as reminders of common affinity. Thus, the dualities underpinning memes’ structure lead to their performance as contested cultural capital.
Social media are increasingly important in protest movements for communication and organization. As such, scholars should consider these ephemeral messages as a tool for understanding such movements’ rhetoric. This article draws on Kjeldsen’s method for the critique of visual political rhetoric and adds consideration of intertextuality, synecdoche, and metaphor to demonstrate a method for the rhetorical analysis and a critique of Internet memes as visual, political rhetoric. The Pepper Spray Cop meme arising from Occupy Wall Street is presented as a case-study example. The article considers the centrality of the intertextual nature of memes as a unique form of visual rhetoric in activist contexts and contributes to the literature on user-generated and activist rhetoric.
The papers in this volume all address aspects of communication that are often dismissed as "trivial" or "small talk", and argue that such forms are in actual fact crucial instruments for sustaining a Goffmanian level of social cohesion through conviviality. Contributors: Jan Blommaert, Piia Varis, Fie Velghe, Zane Goebel, Tilmann Heil and Ben Rampton.
In September 2010, a video titled “It Gets Better” was uploaded to YouTube, responding to suicides of gay teens who had suffered from homophobic bullying. Before long, thousands of Internet users added their own versions of the clip, creating a mass appeal to young people while simultaneously negotiating the norms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) collective identity. Conceptualizing this body of videos as an Internet meme, we examine the extent to which participants imitate or alter textual components presented in previous videos. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of 200 clips shows that in an arena ostensibly free of formal gatekeepers, participants tend to police themselves, toeing the line with conformist norms. We also identify domains of potential subversion, related not only to the content of the videos but mainly to the forms facilitated by digital media.
This article focuses on the discursive underpinnings of the legitimacy crisis that the Eurozone as a transnational institution is facing. By adopting a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective, the empirical analysis focuses on the media discussion in Finland. The analysis shows how discourses of financial capitalism, humanism, nationalism and Europeanism played a central role in legitimation, delegitimation and relegitimation. Furthermore, the analysis elaborates on the legitimation strategies that were often used in the media texts: position-based authorizations involving institutionalized authorities and 'voices of the common man', knowledge-based authorizations focusing on economic expertise, rationalizations concentrating on economic arguments, moral evaluations based on unfairness used especially for delegitimation, mythopoiesis involving alternative future scenarios and cosmology used to construct inevitability. By so doing, this study adds to our understanding of the discursive and ideological underpinnings of the social, political and financial crisis in Greece and other European countries and contributes to research on discursive legitimation more generally.
How should we study the language of political legitimation? Incipient scholarship increasingly seeks to bridge the conceptual schism between the sociological is and the philosophical ought in the study of legitimacy, looking at public legitimating discourses to uncover the actual social attitudes toward prescriptive principles. And while this research agenda has recently gained traction, its methodology remains opaque. This paper suggests that normative concepts, central to the argumentations that hold common basic beliefs and discourse together, can allow us to tap into the language of legitimation. Normative concepts can be traced via mixed methods research, incorporating the quantitative method of corpus linguistics and the qualitative method of discourse-tracing – two techniques that mutually enrich and complement each other. By illuminating changes in the sort, scale, and scope of normative concepts, this mode of inquiry can explicate the language of legitimation and advance our understanding of sociopolitical legitimacy.
Many teens today who use the Internet are actively involved in participatory cultures—joining online communities (Facebook, message boards, game clans), producing creative work in new forms (digital sampling, modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction), working in teams to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (as in Wikipedia), and shaping the flow of media (as in blogging or podcasting). A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these activities, including opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, development of skills useful in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship. Some argue that young people pick up these key skills and competencies on their own by interacting with popular culture; but the problems of unequal access, lack of media transparency, and the breakdown of traditional forms of socialization and professional training suggest a role for policy and pedagogical intervention.
This report aims to shift the conversation about the "digital divide" from questions about access to technology to questions about access to opportunities for involvement in participatory culture and how to provide all young people with the chance to develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed. Fostering these skills, the authors argue, requires a systemic approach to media education; schools, afterschool programs, and parents all have distinctive roles to play.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning
This article relies on U.S. 2-wave panel data to examine the role of social media as a sphere for political expression and its effects on political participation. Informational uses of social media are expected to explain political expression on social media and to promote political participation. This study clarifies the effect of using social media for social interaction in fostering political expression and participation processes. Results indicate that social media news use has direct effects on offline political participation and indirect effects on offline and online political participation mediated via political expression. Furthermore, social media use for social interaction does not have direct influence in people's political engagement, but rather an indirect effect by means of citizens expressing themselves politically.
Recently, scholars tested how digital media use for informational purposes similarly contributes to foster democratic processes and the creation of social capital. Nevertheless, in the context of today's socially-networked-society and the rise of social media applications (i.e., Facebook) new perspectives need to be considered. Based on U.S. national data, results show that after controlling for demographic variables, traditional media use offline and online, political constructs (knowledge and efficacy), and frequency and size of political discussion networks, seeking information via social network sites is a positive and significant predictor of people's social capital and civic and political participatory behaviors, online and offline.
In this paper, I will analyze, as an example of political discourse, the songs used by Spain's two main political parties in the 2008 general elections. Just like other texts used in political electoral discourse (such as speeches, interviews, meetings, posters, advertisements or videos), these songs form a part of a public and ideological discourse aimed at the election of a candidate. The whole of the candidate's discourse is aimed at convincing the electorate that she/he and his/her party are the best choice (legitimation), while the opposing candidate is the worst (delegitimation). In this paper, I will analyze how this strategy, quite typical in political ideological electoral discourse, is put into practice in the two songs.
4chan and reddit are participatory media collectives undergirded by a “logic of lulz” that favours distanced irony and critique. It often works at the expense of core identity categories like race and gender. However, the logic need not be entirely counterproductive to public discourse. Provided that diverse identities find voice instead of exclusion, these sites may facilitate vibrant, agonistic discussion instead of disenfranchising antagonism. In order to assess this potential for productive agonism, I undertook a critical discourse analysis of these collectives. Emphasising the image memes they produce, I evaluated discourses on race and gender. Both race and gender representations were dominated by familiar stereotypes and partial representations. However, while dissenting perspectives on race were repressed or excluded, dissenting perspectives on gender were vocalised and contested. The ‘logic of lulz’ facilitated both dominance and counter, each articulated with heavy reliance on irony and critique. This logic ambiguously balanced agonism and antagonism, but contestation provided sharper engagement than repression.
The future engagement of young citizens from a wide range of socio-economic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds in democratic politics remains a crucial concern for academics, policy-makers, civics teachers and youth workers around the world. At a time when the negative relationship between socio-economic inequality and levels of political participation is compounded by high youth unemployment or precarious employment in many countries, it is not surprising that new social media communications may be seen as a means to re-engage young citizens. This edited collection explores the influence of social media, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, upon the participatory culture of young citizens. This collection, comprising contributions from a number of leading international scholars in this field, examines such themes as the possible effects of social media use upon patterns of political socialization; the potential of social media to ameliorate young people’s political inequality; the role of social media communications for enhancing the civic education curriculum; and evidence for social media manifesting new forms of political engagement and participation by young citizens. These issues are considered from a number of theoretical and methodological approaches but all attempt to move beyond simplistic notions of young people as an undifferentiated category of ‘the internet generation’.
This article assesses Occupy Wall Street as an amalgamation of mediated processes of subjectivation associated with marginal popular culture (memes, meme-platforms, Anonymous operations). This accumulation, I argue, is part of a broader convergence of agencements, of subjectifying processes that took place on and offline, in and out of concentrated occupied zones. OWS gives us one example in response to Toni Negri's call for a genealogy of dispositifs of subjectivation from the perspective of resistance. In addition to examining the accumulation of mediated subjective apparatuses, I propose we think of OWS as an ecology, one that engenders an antagonistic response by a militarized biopolitical state subject (itself an accumulation). I end with some preliminary thoughts on OWS' recomposition after the state's decompositional dispositifs.
‘Advice animals’ are popular user-created, image-based, and online meme formats. The memes include a humorous image of an animal juxtaposed with text offering advice and/or making a joke. One such example is known as ‘Confession Bear’, which features a sad looking Malayan sun bear ‘confessing’ to something silly, shameful, taboo, or embarrassing. Confession Bear was first circulated through the online community Reddit and was intended to be humorous. However, users unexpectedly started creating and sharing more serious confessions involving topics such as rape, abuse, and addiction. These more serious confessions juxtaposed with the Confession Bear image spurred lengthy in-depth conversations on the Reddit message boards about the validity, authenticity, and appropriateness of such confessions. Some users argued advice animals were not ‘supposed’ to be serious, claiming these confessions were an inappropriate use of the form; as such, some users attempted to regulate the participatory culture created by the production of image-based memes. Others sought to find the ‘truth’ in the claims; some argued the confessions were false and therefore inappropriate, while others defended the confessions as authentic, and therefore appropriate. This paper argues anonymity allows users to appropriate and repurpose humorous image-based memes in ways that simultaneously challenge and reproduce hegemonic culture.
A tenable genre development of Internet memes is introduced in three categories to describe memetic transformation: spreadable media, emergent meme, and meme. We argue that memes are remixed, iterated messages which are rapidly spread by members of participatory digital culture for the purpose of continuing a conversation. We understand that memes develop from emergent memes, which we define as altered or remixed spreadable media. We have adapted and modified Jenkins’ term “spreadable media” to refer to original or non-parodied messages. Our analysis benefits from the inclusion of Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory to aid in understanding how memes as artifacts of participatory digital culture are created. Our genre development of memes demonstrates the generative capacity for continued memetic transformation and for participation among members of digital culture. We use structuration to position these dynamic components as the core of a duality of structure for Internet memes.
Launched in 2005 as a video-sharing website, YouTube has become an emblem of participatory culture. A central feature of this website is the dazzling number of derivative videos, uploaded daily by many thousands. Using the ‘meme’ concept as an analytic tool, this article aims at uncovering the attributes common to ‘memetic videos’ – popular clips that generate extensive user engagement by way of creative derivatives. Drawing on YouTube popularity-measurements and on user-generated playlists, a corpus of 30 prominent memetic videos was assembled. A combined qualitative and quantitative analysis of these videos yielded six common features: focus on ordinary people, flawed masculinity, humor, simplicity, repetitiveness and whimsical content. Each of these attributes marks the video as incomplete or flawed, thereby invoking further creative dialogue. In its concluding section, the article addresses the skyrocketing popularity of mimicking in contemporary digital culture, linking it to economic, social and cultural logics of participation.
Despite growing interest in corporate discourse practices, linguists have rarely focused specifically on the discursive legitimation of institutional or corporate actors after perceived episodes of wrongdoing. This may be due to the fact that under normal conditions, legitimation may scarcely be perceptible, only reaching a significant pitch when a major crisis threatens the existence of the agents involved. Should such an event occur, then institutions will summon up a range of justificatory discursive strategies embodying ideological elements that will resonate with socially accepted ideas, feelings or desires. One case in which legitimation could clearly be perceived was that of the oil industry after the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In the wake of the disaster, as the oil spread and the crisis appeared to be uncontrollable, public opinion turned against the oil industry. It comes as no surprise that the messages to shareholders published in the annual reports of oil corporations during the following year all make reference to the incident and attempt to legitimate both the individual companies and the sector as a whole, in the eyes of the public in general and the shareholders for whom the reports are intended. This article examines the discourses of legitimation used in these texts, focusing specifically on the roles assumed by the writer as scientist and environmentalist, as well as financial expert, and on the story-telling techniques used to present the events as a survivor narrative. It discusses ways in which these writers endeavour to engage readers’ solidarity, while also appealing to their interests as stakeholders. These discourses operate on an ideological level to underpin the workings of large corporations within the complex panorama of contemporary capitalism.
In this article we examine some discursive aspects of political legitimation by analyzing the speech of the Spanish Secretary of the Interior, Mayor Oreja; on the occasion of a military-style expulsion of a group of African `illegal' migrants from Melilla—the Spanish enclave in Morocco—in the summer of 1996. After a theoretical analysis of legitimation, we study three levels of legitimation: (a) pragmatic: various strategies of the justification of controversial official actions; (b) semantic: the ways a discourse represents its partisan view of the events or properties of actors as `true' or as the `facts'; and (c) sociopolitical: the way official discourse self-legitimates itself as authoritative and delegitimates alternative discourses. For these various aspects of legitimation, several levels of discursive structure (style, grammar, rhetoric, semantic moves, etc.) are examined in some detail.
This article presents an intertextual analysis of legitimation in four ‘call-to-arms’ speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush. Drawing on Thibault’s (1991) account of critical intertextual analysis, I identify key legitimation strategies and thematic formations that underlie the rhetoric of both speakers. In addition, I (re)situate the speeches in their wider social and historical context to demonstrate how both presidents manipulated the public. In the analysis, I first examine how both speakers use polarizing lexical resources to constitute ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ as superordinate thematic categories that covertly legitimate war. Next, I analyze how representations of the past and future also function to legitimate violence across the four speeches. Finally, I examine how both presidents demarcate group membership to discredit opponents of war at home, and legitimate violence against non-aggressors abroad. I conclude that, in spite of popular mythology, Bush is not an aberrant American president; he is one of many to have misled the public into war.
The present research studied the impact of three typical online communication factors on inducing the toxic online disinhibition effect: anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye-contact. Using an experimental design with 142 participants, we examined the extent to which these factors lead to flaming behaviors, the typical products of online disinhibition. Random pairs of participants were presented with a dilemma for discussion and a common solution through online chat. The effects were measured using participants’ self-reports, expert judges’ ratings of chat transcripts, and textual analyses of participants’ conversations. A 2×2×2 (anonymity/non-anonymity×visibility/invisibility×eye-contact/lack of eye-contact) MANOVA was employed to analyze the findings. The results suggested that of the three independent variables, lack of eye-contact was the chief contributor to the negative effects of online disinhibition. Consequently, it appears that previous studies might have defined the concept of anonymity too broadly by not addressing other online communication factors, especially lack of eye-contact, that impact disinhibition. The findings are explained in the context of an onlinesense of unidentifiability, which apparently requires a more refined view of the components that create a personal sense of anonymity.
In a recent paper, the Australian historian, Martyn Lyons (2013), reviews his attempts to study ‘history from below’, using what can be called grassroots writing by French and Italian soldiers of the Great War. Lyons remarks that the ‘First World War produced a flood of letter-writing by peasants whose literary capacity has often been underestimated’ (Lyons 2013: 5). In France, no less than 10,000 million postal items were dispatched during the war, huge numbers of those being letters and cards written by soldiers from the frontlines to their loved ones. Lyons comments further:Soldiers’ letters followed standard ritualistic formulas, giving and asking for news about health, discussing letters and postcards sent and received, sending greetings to many relatives and neighbors. As a result, their writing leaves us with an overwhelming sense of banality. (Lyons 2013: 22)
This article aims to discuss the role humour plays in politics, particularly in a media environment overflowing with user-generated video. We start with a genealogy of political satire, from classical to Internet times, followed by a general description of “the Hitler meme,” a series of videos on YouTube featuring footage from the film Der Untergang and nonsensical subtitles. Amid video-games, celebrities, and the Internet itself, politicians and politics are the target of twenty-first century caricatures. By analysing these videos we hope to elucidate how the manipulation of images is embedded in everyday practices and may be of political consequence, namely by deflating politicians' constructed media image. The realm of image, at the centre of the Internet's technological culture, is connected with decisive aspects of today's social structure of knowledge and play. It is timely to understand which part of “playing” is in fact an expressive practice with political significance.
Featuring contributions by leading specialists in the field, the volume is a survey of cutting edge research in genres in political discourse. Since, as is demonstrated, “political genres” reveal many of the problems pertaining to the analysis of communicative genres in general, it is also a state-of-the-art addition to contemporary genre theory. The book offers new methodological, theoretical and empirical insights in both the long-established genres (speeches, interviews, policy documents, etc.), and the modern, rapidly-evolving generic forms, such as online political ads or weblogs. The chapters, which engage in timely issues of genre mediatization, hybridity, multimodality, and the mixing of discursive styles, come from a broad range of perspectives spanning Critical Discourse Studies, pragmatics, cognitive psychology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and media studies. As such, they constitute essential reading for anyone seeking an interdisciplinary yet coherent research agenda within the vast and complex territory of today’s forms of political communication.
From the inception of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), participatory media played a key role in the movement. Members of the public engaged OWS on sites like Tumblr and reddit. Central to the discussion were Internet memes. Memes are multimodal artifacts remixed by countless participants, employing popular culture for public commentary. Analyzing the use of memes in political discourse can illuminate the nature of mediated commentary on public events. This article examines how memes were used to articulate perspectives on OWS. A corpus of memes commenting on OWS from multiple participatory media networks was analyzed using multimodal critical discourse analysis. Findings indicated memes facilitated conversation between diverse positions. OWS memes employed populist argument and popular texts, intertwining them into a vibrant polyvocal public discourse.
In an effort to explore the role of new media technologies in environmental protest rhetoric, this paper examines Greenpeace's Let's Go! Arctic campaign, which opposed Shell's Arctic oil-drilling plans. The campaign produced a body of Internet memes designed to look like Shell's own corporate advertising. Moreover, the viral campaign used various rhetorical techniques that challenged Shell's goals and identity. Greenpeace-generated and user-generated memes cleverly use irony, corporate voice and humor to delegitimize Shell's Arctic efforts. The memes offered messages that mocked corporate practices and corporate messaging while also providing direct protest messages and accessible humor that invited identification against Shell. Thus, the memes collectively encouraged identification with Greenpeace's antidrilling, pro-environment discourse.
Pesquisadores e historiadores da Educacao vem ampliando seus olhares quanto a necessidade de estudar instituicoes escolares, mergulhando em seu universo interior. Neste sentido, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo desvelar historicamente a fundacao e implantacao da Faculdade de Medicina de Sergipe que, atraves de sua fundacao em 1960, pelo medico, politico e professor Antonio Garcia Filho, propiciou a instalacao da Universidade Federal de Sergipe. Apoiando-nos metodologicamente na pesquisa documental e bibliografica, procuramos apresentar o contexto historico do ensino superior em Sergipe bem como as dificuldades operacionais e politicas da epoca que permearam os caminhos de Garcia Filho para a fundacao da Faculdade de Medicina de Sergipe. Tornou-se um colaborador da educacao, agindo como um dos mais importantes agentes formadores da intelectualidade em Sergipe e contribuindo para a historia da educacao em Sergipe. A luz do conceito de intelectuais do frances Jean Francois Sirinelli (1996) foi possivel perceber que, com a fundacao da Faculdade de Medicina de Sergipe, Garcia Filho desempenhou importante papel na educacao do Estado, alem de alcancar um dos principais objetivos almejados pelo grupo medico de Sergipe, a necessidade de formar medicos para atender a classe popular desassistida do estado .
This paper re-examines the concept of “meme” in the context of digital culture. Defined as cultural units that spread from person to person, memes were debated long before the digital era. Yet the Internet turned the spread of memes into a highly visible practice, and the term has become an integral part of the netizen vernacular. After evaluating the promises and pitfalls of memes for understanding digital culture, I address the problem of defining memes by charting a communication-oriented typology of 3 memetic dimensions: content, form, and stance. To illustrate the utility of the typology, I apply it to analyze the video meme “Leave Britney Alone.” Finally, I chart possible paths for further meme-oriented analysis of digital content.
This article articulates the fundamental nature of "legitimacy" to public relations re- search and sets forth actional legitimation as a productive new area for public rela- tions studies. After tracing the development of the idea of "corporate legitimacy," this research distinguishes between institutional and actional legitimacy. Although insti- tutional legitimacy has formed a basis for studies of crisis communication, image, values advocacy, and issue management, actional legitimacy studies allow for the study of more day-to-day public relations activities in which publics have a more im- mediate impact on corporate policy. The article concludes that actively studying strat- egies of legitimation for specific corporate policies would produce useful scholarship that builds on extant legitimacy literature. When a commercial airplane carrying more than 200 passengers crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, crisis communication swings into action. The airline, the aircraft manufacturer, and government safety organizations begin the process of rebuilding fliers' trust in air travel. All kinds of organizations involved with air travel launch public relations campaigns comparing the relative risks of air travel with the risks of other types of transportation. The organizations involved seek explanations and pledge prevention of future disasters. The alacrity with which all of these groups create reassuring messages is absolutely necessary—at stake is the industry itself. If consumers suddenly felt that flying was extremely perilous, the airline and air- craft industries would crumble. Crisis communication such as this aims at reestablishing the legitimacy of an industry (Hearit, 1995b). The practice of crisis communication recognizes the broadest sense of legitimacy—that is, an institution's need for publics to recognize
This article presents a discourse approach to the study of legitimacy of governance beyond the democratic state. It starts from the empirical question of how international organizations legitimate their own activities and how they create perceptions of legitimacy in the absence of democratic participation and control. In answering this question the article draws on elements from Max Weber's theory of rational legal domination and on Jürgen Habermas's idea of legitimation through justificatory discourse. This article claims that the legitimacy of international governance hinges upon popular assent to the justifications of its goals, principles and procedures. It thereby also challenges much of the existing literature on legitimacy above the state that regards a democracy deficit a priori as a core problem of international governance.
This article presents a generalized system of image-text relations which applies to different genres of multimodal discourse in which images and texts co-occur. It combines two kinds of relations - the relative status of images and text, and how they relate to one another in terms of logico-semantics. Every instance of an image-text combination in the data sample is described by a selection of features from the system. The units of images and text between which the relations obtain are identified and the realizations of the logico-semantic and status relations are specified, both for the human analyst and a machine. Two application scenarios are discussed. The system should be useful for distinguishing between image-text relations for (genuinely) new and old media.
This essay analyzes Governor James Hunt's response to the controversy created by the case of the Wilmington 10. North Carolina's judicial system had been criticized for its performance and with a televised address the Governor attempted to restore confidence in the state's legal institutions. His strategy was to convert an emotional civil issue into a technical‐legal problem. This redefinition is viewed as a portent of a tactic that can erode the capacity of a government to legitimize its authority.
Participation in America represents the largest study ever conducted of the ways in which citizens participate in American political life. Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie addresses the question of who participates in the American democratic process, how, and with what effects. They distinguish four kinds of political participation: voting, campaigning, communal activity, and interaction with a public official to achieve a personal goal. Using a national sample survey and interviews with leaders in 64 communities, the authors investigate the correlation between socioeconomic status and political participation. Recipient of the Kammerer Award (1972), Participation in America provides fundamental information about the nature of American democracy.
The article sets out a framework for analysing the way discourses construct legitimation for social practices in public communication as well as in everyday interaction. Four key categories of legitimation are distinguished: 1) ‘authorization’, legitimation by reference to the authority of tradition, custom and law, and of persons in whom institutional authority is vested; 2) ‘moral evaluation’, legitimation by reference to discourses of value; 3) rationalization, legitimation by reference to the goals and uses of institutionalized social action, and to the social knowledges that endow them with cognitive validity; and 4) mythopoesis, legitimation conveyed through narratives whose outcomes reward legitimate actions and punish non-legitimate actions. Examples are drawn from texts legitimating or de-legitimating compulsory education, including children’s books, brochures for parents, teacher training texts, and media texts.
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doi: 10.1080/17524032.2014.991411