The Discursive Counter-Power of Internet Memes in Response to the Management of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Kenya

Abstract

The theft of resources during the grievous period of the Covid-19 pandemic, by stakeholders entrusted with mitigating the pandemic, significantly undermined efforts to combat the disease. This led to disillusionment among many Kenyans. One would expect disillusioned people to remain dejected and melancholic, but, intriguingly, Kenyans responded by starting to disseminate internet memes parodying and lampooning the government’s preventive protocols, to the amusement of many people. This article, in departing from extant critical studies on other forms of humour in Kenya, such as stand-up comedy, seeks to investigate internet memes produced during a time of crisis. An internet meme can be described as a multimodal artefact of social commentary disseminated via the internet. It is visual and subject to reformulation or replication by a number of social media participants. Memes have become a ready tool for dissecting and countering the actions of the authorities in Kenya in the face of Covid-19, and this article focuses on the discursive counter-power of internet memes related to Kenyan Covid-19 protocols. Drawing on semiotics theory, the researcher studied twelve internet memes, purposively selected in view of the objectives of the study from a corpus of seventy-two memes that address preventive measures. The results show that the internet memes on coronavirus infections in Kenya served to satirise and consequently subvert the government’s position in handling the disease. It also shows that victims of government sanctions and police brutality were placed in the spotlight through morbid humour, a welcome relief for people living in a state of despondency.