Censorship Crisis

Abstract

The following research studies the use of memes on the social platform Twitter with regards to celebrity representation. Specifically, it analyzes two memetic posts by Elon Musk and the representation tactics behind them, using elements of multimodal analysis and critical discourse analysis. Subsequently, the study looks at the reception of these posts via comparative content analysis with custom classification to determine how successful the tactics behind these posts are and whether there is any evidence observable in the reception regarding censorship on Twitter after its purchase by Elon Musk. The comparative study comes in a form of quantitative analysis of the first 150 responses to each of the two posts. The study does not only demonstrate instances of attempts at diminishing the distance which the inherent power of a celebrity personage on social media creates, but also how successful these attempts are and whether they manage to distract the audience from the personage in question and their power over them.