Pools, Carparks and Ball-pits

The first restoration proposals to emerge after fire destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral’s roof and spire were jokes. The more serious schemes that followed Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement of a competition – many markedly similar, recreating what was lost in glass– were collected on mainstream design media websites like Dezeen where they attracted an unusually high volume of angry comments, accusing the architects of insensitivity. Soon after, Ulf Mejergren Architects’ proposal to replace Notre Dame’s roof with a meditative pool was edited into a carpark. It sparked a series of increasingly outlandish edits – first a multi-story carpark, then a ball pit – before the French Senate declared that there would be no competition after all. This at times absurd online interest might be new for architectural competitions, but it is easily explained through meme theory, as conceived of by scholars like Limor Shifman and Ryan Milner: systems of interconnected units of cultural exchange operating on both wider cultural and specific sub-cultural levels. In this essay I contend that meme theory can be used, in reverse, to analyse reactions to, and similarities between, even the most serious Notre Dame proposals. In applying this framework, we can begin to understand how competitions operate more broadly as part of a complex network online and how they relate to traditional competition conditions. &nbsp

Legitimation of hate and political violence through memetic images: the Bolsonaro campaign

The federal elections were held in Brazil in 2018. The ballot resulted in a victory for the far-right candidate, Jair Messias Bolsonaro. The question that arose after the victory of the far-right was: How could this have happened? One of the instruments that undoubtedly contributed to this unexpected victory was a peculiar aspect of his political campaign: memetic communication. Through the use of memes in the social media (above all WhatsApp), Bolsonaro’s project transformed these violent discourses against political opponents, feminism, racialised persons and poverty into a series of discourses legitimised through humour and irony. It was a simplification through the memes affecting the static system of cognitive and metaphorical frameworks. During the pre-election period in 2018, we carried out digital ethnographic research in the WhatsApp groups of supporters of Bolsonaro’s project (“Bolsonarism”). In this period, we collected a sample of 132 memes belonging to WhatsApp groups composed of up to 256 members, who did not know each other and were geographically dispersed. The analysis we carried out demonstrates the trivialisation and legitimisation of violence against political opponents and other social groups. Much of this legitimisation was camouflaged under the mask of supposed humour and irony, which in reality was insulting, prejudicial and dehumanising

MEANING-MAKING OF INTERNET MEMES TO CREATE HUMOROUS SENSE: FUNCTIONS AS SPEECH ACTS

This research explored how the memes were created with multimodal elements that could make meaning to create a humorous sense and function as speech acts. With the complexity of meaning-making, nowadays, it had become a trend that people could communicate online through Memes. Semiotics provides how the combination of modes, media, and potential meanings, that were applied to make meaning in memes. At the same time, pragmatics proposes details on how memes can function as speech acts. This research adopted a qualitative method using multimodal analysis by Leeuwen (2005) and speech acts theory by Bach and Harnish (1980) that were employed as the theoretical framework. A total of 16 memes were retrieved and captured as JPG files from social media and other internet websites; therefore, documentation was the only technique used in this research. The results of the study showed that (1) the integration of semiotic resources such as mode, media, and meaning potentials in memes aided the readers to understand the background knowledge of memes (2) two types of communicative illocutionary acts were found in the memes: constative and directive illocutionary acts which function to express the emotion or opinions and question something (3) the effects of using internet memes could be seen through verbal and non-verbal perlocutionary acts which showed an agreement and had the same feeling as in the memes. Finally, the memes containing multimodal components composed of semiotic resources interacted creatively to make humorous sense, and it could aid the readers to communicate online.

The Room Built by Fans: En studie av fankulturen och memes kring filmen The Room

Uppsatsen behandlar fankulturen, Youtube-recensioner och Youtube-memes kring filmen The Room (Tommy Wiseau, 2003)

A Meme is Worth a Thousand Words: Universal Communication Through Memes

With the rise of the digital age has come about a new form of communicating concepts—the meme: repeatable, transferable information. The purpose of this project is to understand the inclusive nature of internet communication not restricted by barriers. This format plays with the boundaries to imagination, creating a new form of communication not relying on language, color, or shape, but the interchange of these within an established concept. Memes have created a universal, living form of expression irrelevant of culture, region, age, or language in which individuals cross normal borders of expression and communication. We attempt to define the modern meme through its philosophical etymology and its evolved application. We then examine how memes, based on this definition, can be used as a legitimate form of communication. With this project we propose that the meme has potential to have real world, expressive effects to cross barriers to communication

Bill Gates Covid19 Conspiracy in Reddit Memes: A Semiotic Approach

Covid19 as global issue connects other social variables such as Bill Gates conspiracy issue that becomes the most predominant covid19 issue discussed globally in public (Shalini, 2020). Memes as meaningful entities exist to influence internet public in facing Bill Gates  issue even without rational and empirical inquiry for some particular people that believe in them. Reddit website as  easily accessible website becomes one of memes website that shares actively more numerous memes related to Bill Gates conspiracy issue than the other websites. The memes contain cultural values represented by verbal forms and visual forms to exchange belief and rational arguments.This study conducts interpretation data based on qualitative mtethod. Associating particular signifiers to Bill Gates in whole data refer to Bill Gates’ negative track record, past ideas, ambitions, and pace. Several data contain visual signifier and written signifier that support each other to acquire signified in a data such as Bill Gates in virus form who injects an old man. Signifiers reflect predominatly negative assosiations related to Bill Gates. It explicates negative connotation that exists consistently. Myths which exist represent that Bill Gates’s vaccine as a danger, Bill Gates as a mastermind behind the pandemic, and Bill Gates as an opportunist who concerns on expansion of business to reach vaccine business

From Print Propaganda to Meme Activism: The Evolution of Graphic Communication and its Effect on Socio-Political Climates and Methods of Activism

This project will assess mediums of communication used to create and spread political propaganda, namely from print to digital. The development of graphic communication may provide interesting correlation of how values and ideas are visually represented in society and how the people have reacted to shifting politics. This project is inspired by the recent political climate in the United States, and the continuous impact the media has on the public throughout the many visual forms of communication. Inspiration is also drawn from the advancement of technology in the graphic communication industry. This allows for greater ease of access for the public to create a variety of content—leading to the birth of the internet meme. Thus, people may be more likely to engage in the phenomenon of participatory media, in which individuals engage in political discourse through their desired means of communication on social media. The purpose of this study is to consider the methods that socio-political discourse is extended through social media, and how these means contribute to the reaction to social issues and political alignment which results in activism