Abstract
Internet memes are the most pervasive and malleable form of digital popular culture (Wiggins 2019: vii). They are a way a society expresses and thinks of itself (Denisova 2019: 2) used for the purpose of satire, parody, critique to posit an argument (Wiggins 2019, see also Ponton 2021, this issue). The acts of viewing, creating, sharing and commenting on memes that criticise or troll authority figures have become central to our political processes becom[ing] one of the most important forms of political participation and activism today (Merrin 2019: 201). However, memes do not communicate to us in logical arguments, but emotionally and affectively through short quips and images that entertain. Memes are part of a new politics of affectivity, identification, emotion and humour (Merrin 2019: 222). In this paper, we examine not only what politics memes communicate to us, but how this is done. We analyse memes, some in mainstream social media circulation, that praise and criticise the authoritarian tendencies of former US President Donald Trump, taken from 4Chan, a home of many alt-right ideas. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies approach, we demonstrate how images and lexical choices in memes do not communicate to us in logical, well-structured arguments, but lean on affective and emotional discourses of racism, nationalism and power. As such, though memes have the potential to emotionally engage with their intended audiences, this is done at the expense of communicating nuanced and detailed information on political players and issues. This works against the ideal of a public sphere where debate and discussion inform political decisions in a population, essential pillars of a democratic society (Habermas 1991).
Highlights
Since the Paleolithic Era when humans dwelt in caves, still imagery has been an integral part of how we communicate (Clottes 2019)
Using the case study of memes about former US President Donald Trump, this paper considers what politics memes offer us and how these communicate to us emotionally and affectively in our insatiable search to be informed and entertained
We find memes lean on emotional discourses about nationalism, racism and authoritarianism
Summary
The World Made Meme: Public conversations and participatory Media. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism. Movement and meaning: Towards an integrated approach to political discourse analysis. Special issue: Discourse Analysis in the 21st Century: Theory anf Practice (I). The Discursive Power of memes in Digital Culture: Ideology, semiotics, and intertextuality. In Ruth Wodak & Paul Chilton (eds), A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis: Theory, Methodology and Interdisciplinarity, 121–136. London: Bloomsbury Advances in Critical Discourse Studies. История статьи: Дата поступления в редакцию: 10 февраля 2021 Дата принятия к печати: 12 июня 2021
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