Internet Memes Research Articles

Lenin, Putin, and Rage Guy: Internet memes in the discourse of a Russian far-right community

ABSTRACT The article addresses Internet memes’ usage in Russian far-right discourse, seeking to evaluate how it corresponds with the basic roles of memes in political communication and the extent to which the Russian far-right memetic vernacular is universally translatable. The article uses qualitative content analysis and multimodal discourse analysis of the “Right-Wing Memes” community on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte. The Russian far-right builds its social identity by filling the floating signifiers of the “left-wing,” “migrants,” and “Russian national state” with relevant meanings through the memetic means of visual humor, bitter irony, and parallel comparison. These construct the in- and out-groups, convey the ideological message, and give voice to the groups excluded from the mainstream. However, although the Russian far-right employs globalized memetic tropes, the content is mainly country-specific, which, together with the language barrier, hinders the formation of a universal far-right memetic discourse.

Exploring learners’ attitudes towards meme consumption and their implications for classroom use

ABSTRACT This study tries to ascertain the attitudes of tertiary learners’ internet meme consumption and its potential for pedagogical implications. Internet memes, as multifaceted cultural artefacts, have become pervasive in contemporary digital communication, influencing societal discourse and online interactions. Despite their prevalence, research on learners’ everyday experiences and attitudes towards memes in educational settings is a rarity. This research therefore aims to examine the affective and cognitive attitudes of undergraduate students towards internet meme culture. Utilising a cross-sectional survey design, data was collected from 119 second-year undergraduate students at St. Joseph's College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli, India. The questionnaire focused on measuring both affective and cognitive appeal towards meme consumption. The analysis revealed that memes as an educational tool have a positive impact on the affective and cognitive domains in a classroom setting.

Re-visiting copyright: is there a way to tackle selective enforcement and non-contextual algorithmic takedowns? A discussion through the lens of internet meme culture

ABSTRACT Internet memes, a bourgeoning form of communication, resemble accessory elements of language. However, internet memes are conceptually complex. Their collective re-creative process relies heavily on copying underlying works, usually without asking for prior-permission from their rightsholders. Internet memes challenge core copyright assumptions on reasons of re-creation and modes of exploitation. Without a fundamental rethink of this mismatch, internet meme culture may be threatened. Going forward, copyright reforms should be holistic and distinguish between traditional and newer forms of re-creative processes. This article proposes that existing copyright can be flexibly interpreted to limit private property rights of underlying works and meme variations when they are used as internet memes, so as to facilitate their adaptation and support socio-cultural discourse. This article proposes a two-step holistic interpretation: copyright can conceptualise and confer limited rights for underlying works and meme variations when they are copied and re-used as internet memes. Copyright can also conceptualise a narrower scope of property rights by flexibly interpreting a combination of fundamental notions, including joint authorship, fair dealing, idea-expression, or user rights. This holistic approach sits comfortably with user-creators and their blurry cultural production-consumption patterns, alongside their nuanced (non)economic use of internet memes.

#QuadrosDiscentes: Research into memes and art in teacher training in Brazil and Spain

In this paper we reflect on and present the results of part of a research project we conducted in academic years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 with students of the Double Degree in Infant and Primary Education of the University of Girona - UdG (Catalonia, Spain) and students of the Degree in Visual Arts of Santa Catarina State University - UDESC (Brazil), concerning Internet memes and their linguistic strategies. In order to bring the two fields of study together and facilitate collaboration, a closed group within the Facebook social network was used as a space of interaction between the research subjects. The researchers took part in the experience, in accordance with the protocols of the action research method. The results point towards reflections and potential modifications that could be introduced in new research into how to learn and teach about volatile images—typical of cyberculture—in educational processes for teacher training.

Information spread behavior of clubhouse: A value-attitude-behavior model perspective

The prevalence of social media has significantly facilitated the spread and diffusion of online memes. The Clubhouse voice community application, which gained popularity rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic and became widely used, can be regarded as a form of internet meme. However, the underlying reasons for this phenomenon have been scarcely explored. In this context, the purpose of this study is to understand the dissemination mechanisms of the Clubhouse voice community. Specifically, this research employs the value-attitude-behavior model to investigate the relationships between social value, attitude, immediate response syndrome, and information spread behavior on Clubhouse. To achieve this objective, the snowball sampling technique was used to recruit Clubhouse users to complete a questionnaire. The collected data were assessed for reliability and validity before being analyzed using structural equation modeling for confirmatory factor analysis and model verification. The results indicated that the social value of joining Clubhouse is positively associated with participants’ attitudes toward participation. Additionally, attitudes toward participation were found to be positively associated with both immediate response syndrome and information spread behavior, thus showing a positive association between immediate response syndrome and information spread behavior. This study reveals the pathways of internet meme dissemination, offering insights into the factors driving the formation of internet memes.

Laughing at the state: state violence and satirical acts of citizenship in the Afro-Brazilian diaspora

This article explores acts of humour that enact citizens as political subjects in the face of state violence and practices of controlled incorporation of racialised Afro-Brazilian others. To do this I analyse hitherto unstudied material from the online memes that followed the forced disappearance of Mr Amarildo de Souza by the ‘pacifying’ police in Rio de Janeiro. Doing this I show how multi-modal online memes that take an ironic stance towards state-violence can be understood as enacting a radical equality which subverts the state-sanctioned racialised and gendered distribution of unequal functions and places that serves to ‘pacify’ threatening racialised others. Thus, I argue that the act of joking is an act of citizenship because it presupposes equality while enacting an incongruity between this equality and the reality of racist state violence, and its ostensible purpose of ‘saving’ racialised victims. In this way ironic memes can provide an important contribution to theory of citizenship, which hitherto has not involved the study of humour as a political act. Thus, if the political nature of humour involves incongruity between conceptualisation and experience, abstract and sensory/objective, sanctity and profanity, dignity and baseness, acts that ironically enact these incongruities as existing in and between state-discourse and practice are deeply political acts and need to be studied as such.

“Welcome to shege banza”

Abstract This paper examines the forms and functions of Internet memes relating to the fuel subsidy removal policy of Nigeria´s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with a view to identifying the conceptual metaphors that underlie the creation of the memes. The data, which consist of fifty memes shared in the Nigerian WhatsApp space, are analysed qualitatively using aspects of Kress and van Leeuwen´s (2001) multimodal discourse analysis and Forceville´s (2015) multimodal metaphor theory. The findings reveal that the discourse, design and production of the multimodal resources enhance the conceptualization of the metaphorical representations in the memes. The study also shows the prevalence of the metaphors: fuel subsidy removal is a fraud, fuel subsidy removal is poverty and fuel subsidy removal is inequality among other conceptual metaphors to explain the people´s negative disposition towards the fuel subsidy removal policy. The study concludes that the forms and functions of the subsidy removal-related memes assist in revealing the multimodal conceptual metaphors underlying the memes.

Metaphorical constructs and semiotic expressions in the BBC Yoruba Internet memes of English Premier League match results

Metaphorical constructs and semiotic expressions in the BBC Yoruba Internet memes of English Premier League match results

A down-to-earth visual representation of contemporary China: analysing the video game Chinese Parents

The award-winning indie video game Chinese Parents, developed by a mainland China-based studio, has gained significant popularity among both Chinese and Western players owing to its unique narrative and representation of contemporary mainland China. Some of these in-game representations include the strict parenting style, academic pressure on Chinese children, unique Chinese school culture and popular Chinese internet memes. This article applies compositional interpretation, as well as the framework of iconology in visual culture to analyse the representation of contemporary mainland China from a video-game-context graphic communication perspective. Examples of character portraits, background scene illustrations, biaoqingbao meme application and supporting visual elements are selected and analysed to demonstrate how the game incorporates contemporary Chinese culture into the visuals, while also challenging and playing into existing clichés of Chinese culture.

From Humour to Impact: Internet Memes in Political Discourse through (de)legitimization

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.

Toward a rhetorical understanding of Chinese political internet memes amid a Chinese governance crisis

ABSTRACT The global trend of social media communication renders internet memes increasingly popular as democratic-oriented discursive tools in online ideological contests. However, scholarly attention to the rhetorical aspects of memetic political discourse has predominantly been Western-centric, leaving their counterparts in non-Western socio-political environments, especially during times of social crises, relatively unexplored in the existing literature. To bridge this gap, this article employs a social-semiotic-rooted multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) to investigate how Chinese netizens utilize internet memes for ideological contestation during a societal-level Chinese governance crisis in the 2020s, characterized by a series of iconic ideological upheavals. The research examines 357 memes from the “My Post” community on WeChat, one of China’s prominent social apps, to unveil their symbolic processes and rhetorical functions in Chinese online politics. This empirical study reveals that Chinese political internet memes serve as strategic rhetorical devices that: (1) enable civic ideological expressions within an authoritarian media landscape dominated by standardized ideological narratives; (2) foster a dynamic process allowing negotiation among political authority, media institutions, and netizens to establish a discursive space accommodating contentious topics and acceptable compromises; and (3) signify a paradigm shift in rhetorical function, elevating internet memes from online communicative artifacts to a democratic perspective.

Multimodal metaphtonymy in internet memes: A response to Donald Trump’s mug shot on X (formerly twitter) as a case study

Multimodal metaphtonymy in internet memes: A response to Donald Trump’s mug shot on X (formerly twitter) as a case study

PolyMeme: Fine-Grained Internet Meme Sensing.

Internet memes are a special type of digital content that is shared through social media. They have recently emerged as a popular new format of media communication. They are often multimodal, combining text with images and aim to express humor, irony, sarcasm, or sometimes convey hatred and misinformation. Automatically detecting memes is important since it enables tracking of social and cultural trends and issues related to the spread of harmful content. While memes can take various forms and belong to different categories, such as image macros, memes with labeled objects, screenshots, memes with text out of the image, and funny images, existing datasets do not account for the diversity of meme formats, styles and content. To bridge this gap, we present the PolyMeme dataset, which comprises approximately 27 K memes from four categories. This was collected from Reddit and a part of it was manually labelled into these categories. Using the manual labels, deep learning networks were trained to classify the unlabelled images with an estimated error rate of 7.35%. The introduced meme dataset in combination with existing datasets of regular images were used to train deep learning networks (ResNet, ViT) on meme detection, exhibiting very high accuracy levels (98% on the test set). In addition, no significant gains were identified from the use of regular images containing text.

Using Online Memes to Communicate About Health: A Systematic Review.

We conducted a systematic review of the literature on online health memes to (a) detect and describe the available research, (b) identify key findings, and (c) delineate future research needs/opportunities. Databases, communication and public health journals, and ancestry search. Empirical studies, in English, published in peer-reviewed academic journals, and focused on memes to discuss health-related topics. We scrutinized 357 empirical articles and included 35. Descriptive summary of the locations where studies were conducted, the health topics addressed, theories and methods used, features of memes analyzed, study outcomes, and researchers' challenges. Most studies were conducted in the USA (n = 14); focused on COVID-19 (n = 15); were a-theoretical (n = 19); and quantitative (n = 19). Most explored the themes and use of the memes available online (n = 19); compared meme variations (n = 12) by health issue, content, or participants' group; examined meme' effects on health outcomes (n = 1); or evaluated memes as part of a health campaign (n = 3). We summarized the studies' limitations and key findings. Memes are a promising message strategy for health promotion and education, but more research is necessary. Considering the information retrieved, we provide five specific recommendations for future research directions when studying health memes, including suggestions on the multiple health issues to address and promising theories to adopt and expand.

Internet memes and social media marketing: a review of theories

Internet memes and social media marketing: a review of theories

Research on the Spread of Memes and the Positive Mental Health of Adolescents in the Internet Environment

With the proliferation of social media and Internet culture, playing memes has emerged as a primary mode of communication among teenagers, demonstrating their ability to interpret text and recreate language. Teenagers transform and use Internet memes in the rapid development of the Internet, constantly carry out innovative transformation and creative development in the development of Internet culture, draw inspiration from learned idioms and allusions and daily life practice, adapt, add, innovate, and form new forms of expression, so as to provide themselves with entertainment and the operation of mental thinking. This new activity promotes positive mental health and aids in the holistic development of teenagers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of playing memes on adolescents' positive mental health in the Internet environment, using a literature review and case analysis. The study found that moderate participation in meme-playing activities under the correct guidance can enhance the sense of group belonging and social interaction among adolescents, thereby promoting their mental health development.

A Study on Meme Marketing Strategies of Domestic Brands and Optimization Suggestions

In today’s era of traffic, the powerful monetization ability of meme marketing has attracted growing attention from brands. However, there is still limited research on domestic brand meme marketing in academic circles. Therefore, aiming to study domestic meme marketing strategies from a macro perspective, an interview was conducted to collect current meme marketing strategies of domestic brands, and a questionnaire was then released to evaluate the application effect of these strategies. The results show that domestic brands have used Internet memes in marketing with the help of artificial intelligence, explored to establish a brand virtual image, and adopted the two-way communication model of User Generated Content (UGC). Nonetheless, current meme marketing strategies have not shown a significant effect on improving consumers’ willingness to learn about brands and purchase their products or services. This paper provides improved meme marketing strategies that further arouse the transformable consumption potential of consumers and effectively consolidate the maintenance and expansion of brand communication.

Image and verbal text interfaces of internet memes: a cognitive analysis

The article focuses on image-text interface types of Internet memes mocking the same viral event – Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican Party convention. The future first lady’s address contained borrowings from Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic Party convention. The relevance of the study is accounted for both by the social significance of visual-verbal Internet memes as a tool influencing the formation of the Internet users’ views and by the need to elucidate the principles of interaction between the verbal and visual modes of memes in creating a humorous effect, which is the aim of the study. The application of cognitive linguistics methods, in particular, the tools of the theory of conceptual integration for multimodal analysis of communication, made it possible to establish four types of visual and verbal text interfaces. It has been concluded that simple visual-verbal metonymy underlies memes, in which the humorous effect is achieved through the interaction of an image that provides access to a viral event mocked by the meme and a verbal text that activates a certain metonymic association highlighting a feature of the event that is incompatible with the expectations provided by the generic space of the viral event. In memes built on the basis of visual metonymy and verbal allusion, incompatible conceptual structures are activated with the help of allusive connection. Radial visual-verbal metonymy occurs when an image engages a series of metonymic features linked by a radial semantic link, whereas the verbal text highlights the incompatibility of these features with the actual features of the viral event. The interaction of allusion and diffuse visual-verbal metonymy is the cognitive basis of memes, in which access to a viral event is provided by verbal allusion, while the image contains signs of absurdity and triggers metonymic associations that are not based on expected connections.

Stylistic and Rhetoric Elements on Memes in Education Context: A Critical Discourse Analysis

In this digital age, the presence of internet memes becomes a common way to share information online. People may use different stylistic and rhetoric elements to communicate their ideas and convey a particular meaning. This paper aimed to analyze stylistic and rhetoric elements employed in the selected memes in education context by using Van Dijk Critical Discourse Analysis. The data were forty memes related to education which were collected from four Instagram groups, namely itb.receh, school_life memoriess, 9gag.com, and memeindonesia.real. This research utilized descriptive qualitative method. The result showed that in stylistic, the most dominant dictions used were slang and denotative. The high frequency of using slang is done as a strategy to express a sense of familiarity to audiences and to show portrait of daily basis situation in students’ lives, while the use of denotative dictions conveys clear understanding and avoid misinterpretation toward these memes. Furthermore, in rhetoric elements, no metaphor is found in the selected memes while graphics is mostly used in the memes to highlight important parts. It was delivered through the production of words in bigger size, bold, different colour, different type of fonts, words which are crossed out, and the use of emoticon. Graphic provides a visual representation for audiences and these highlighted words help them comprehend messages and values which the writer is trying to deliver.

POLITICAL INTERNET MEMES: A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

The article is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of memes, which are a controversial aspect of modern communication, the subtleties of which have not yet been studied. The analysis of language material shows that the combination of verbal and non-verbal components of memes creates an autonomous information entity that is capable of self-reproduction of the representation of a linguistic personality at the phonetic, lexical, grammatical, cognitive and pragmatic levels in political discourse. In this realm, the concept of the “political internet meme” emerges, denoting a specialized form of political discourse that combines visual and verbal components to sway an audience into the realm of political communication. These memes combine traditional political terminology with colloquial vocabulary strategically designed to achieve persuasive goals. Generally, political internet memes are created through affixation and the use of simplified grammatical structures without articles, often intentionally including spelling and grammatical errors to increase their impact. In pursuit of a comedic effect, the creators of political Internet memes use a whole arsenal of stylistic and linguistic means. These include complex wordplay involving phonetic and morphological manipulations, various expressive techniques, and playful experiments with typography and punctuation. Thanks to such means, memes go beyond the simple transmission of information, turning into powerful tools of political expression and persuasion.