Shared, posted, tweeted, commented upon, and discussed online as well as off-line, internet memes represent a new genre of online communication, and an understanding of their production, dissemination, and implications in the real world enables an improved ability to navigate digital culture. This book explores cases of cultural, economic, and political critique levied by the purposeful production and consumption of internet memes. Often images, animated GIFs, or videos are remixed in such a way to incorporate intertextual references, quite frequently to popular culture, alongside a joke or critique of some aspect of the human experience. Ideology, semiotics, and intertextuality coalesce in the book’s argument that internet memes represent a new form of meaning-making, and the rapidity by which they are produced and spread underscores their importance.
Author(s): Bradley E. Wiggins
Series: Routledge Studies In New Media And Cyberculture
Publisher: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 181
Tags: Memes, Digital Communications, Social Media: Social Aspects, Intercultural Communication
Cover......Page 1
Half Title......Page 2
Series Page......Page 3
Title Page......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures......Page 12
List of Tables......Page 14
Preface/Foreword......Page 16
1 Dawkins Revisited: A Brief History of the Term Meme and Its Function......Page 18
Memes and Viral Media......Page 21
Memes as a Cultural Commodity......Page 23
Memes and Culture......Page 24
Memes and Internet Memes......Page 25
Memes and the Role of Remix......Page 28
You Can’t Touch My Meme......Page 29
Attention and Reproducibility......Page 30
An Elaboration of Shifman’s Typology of Memetic Dimension......Page 32
Applying the Elaboration of Shifman’s Model to Image-Based Memes......Page 34
Introduce the Internet......Page 35
Digital Culture......Page 38
Older Fears and New Rationalities......Page 39
The Power of Discourse......Page 40
Discourse as Ideology......Page 41
Ideology......Page 42
Ideology and Internet Memes......Page 47
Semiotics......Page 48
Semiotics and Internet Memes......Page 49
Intertextuality and Internet Memes......Page 51
3 Memes as Genre......Page 54
Genre......Page 57
Toward a Genre Development of Memes: Structuration Theory......Page 58
Duality of Structure......Page 59
Maintenance, Elaboration, Modification: A Genre Development of Memes......Page 60
Spreadable Media......Page 61
Emergent Meme......Page 62
Internet Meme......Page 63
Distracted Boyfriend......Page 64
The Most Interesting Man in the World......Page 65
Structuration in the Context of Internet Memes......Page 66
Concluding Discussion......Page 68
Do All Memes Follow the Genre Development?......Page 69
Technological Affordances and Ideological Practice......Page 74
International Research into Internet Memes......Page 75
Jokerizing Obama: Appropriations of Meaning......Page 78
Obama as Joker, Trump as Joker?......Page 80
What Exactly is a Political Meme?......Page 81
Spain (and Catalonia)......Page 83
Gamifying Political Discourse......Page 85
Tabarnia: The Parody which begat the Real......Page 86
Russia: Strategic Relativism and the Politics of Eternity......Page 87
Interference in 2016......Page 88
Russia’s 2018 Election: Participatory Culture or Political Malaise?......Page 89
Comparative Analysis......Page 93
Crushing Criticism or Internet Sovereignty?......Page 95
Elevation of the Semiotic: The China Dream......Page 96
If You Don’t Like Reality, Change It......Page 97
Commercial Usage of Memes and Copyright......Page 102
Viral, by Design?......Page 105
Where’s the Beef? Wendy’s Commercial as an Early Example of Viral Media......Page 107
The Role of Cool in Strategic Uses of Internet Memes......Page 108
Numa Numa Guy and the Geico Lizard......Page 111
Virgin Media, Vitamin Water, and the Success Kid......Page 112
Delta Airline’s Internetest Safety Video......Page 113
Concluding Discussion......Page 114
Audiences and the Reception of Content, Historically......Page 117
Beyond Effects: Uses and Gratifications......Page 118
Stuart Hall: Dominant, Negotiated, and Oppositional Decoding......Page 119
Toward a Meme-Centric Understanding of Audience......Page 122
Media Narratives, Television, and Internet Memes......Page 126
Postmodern Tendencies of Television and Internet Memes......Page 127
Internet Memes and the Imagined Audience......Page 128
Essentialism and Constructivism......Page 132
Temporality and Instability of Identity......Page 133
The Babadook: Horror Movie Monster as a Gay Icon?......Page 135
Resonance: Babadook, Facebook, and Identity......Page 136
March for Our Lives: Aftermath of the Parkland School Shooting......Page 140
Role of Metaphor: Procatoptric Staging......Page 141
Making Sense of It All......Page 142
Meme-ing Ourselves to Death?......Page 143
8 Internet Memes as a Form of…Art?......Page 147
The Bizarre, Absurd, Cringeworthy, Ironic, etc. as Expressions of Disillusionment......Page 149
Dada, Surrealism, and Internet Memes......Page 151
Structural Similarities between Dada and Internet Memes......Page 152
Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade......Page 153
Internet Memes and Literary Linkages: Neue Sachlichkeit......Page 154
René Magritte and The Treachery of Images (or La trahison des images)......Page 155
Introducing a Neo-Dadaist Semiotic......Page 157
America First, Netherlands Second: The Most Fantastic, Absolutely Tremendous Analysis, Really. It’s Great......Page 158
A Neo-Dadaist Semiotic in Image-Based Internet Memes......Page 160
Analysis: Using the Elaboration of the Model......Page 163
Concluding Discussion......Page 169
Postface/Afterword......Page 174
Index......Page 176
