Article published in:
The Pragmatics of Internet MemesEdited by Chaoqun Xie
[Internet Pragmatics 3:2] 2020
► pp. 283–320
Internet memes as multilayered re-contextualization vehicles in lay-political online discourse
It is well established that the internet meme has come to represent a highly creative discursive device used to
“facilitate the […] communication of one’s own political beliefs, attitudes and orientations” (Ross and Rivers 2017: 1). Although internet memes and political internet memes in particular have been addressed to
many communicative situations such as participatory culture (e.g., Jenkins 2006; Shifman 2014; Theocharis 2015), one aspect
that has not been paid enough attention to concerns the forms in which users refer to individual political figures and events in
political memes. This being said, the present paper focuses on referring strategies (see Kirner-Ludwig and Zimmermann 2015; Kirner-Ludwig 2020) as employed in
political internet memes on Reddit, including direct and indirect quotes, citations and allusions. A specific focus is going to be
on such political internet memes that employ pop cultural and telecinematic reference points and recontextualize them from their
original into new target contexts (see Bublitz 2015; Gruber 2019). As shall be shown, practices such as combining constructed speech elements into
recontextualized elements in political internet memes create multiple intertextual references that may enhance visibility,
saliency and, thus, the ‘lifetime’ of a political meme.
Keywords: political internet memes, constructed speech, intertextuality, recontextualization, lay-political discourse, participatory culture, Reddit, Google images
Article outline
- 1.Objectives and focus of this paper
- 2.Literature review
- 2.1Internet-enabled ‘participatory culture’ and lay-political discourse
- 2.2Recontextualization of political contents through memetic discourse, or: On the “Memeification of politics”
- 2.3Enhanced intertextuality through pseudo-references and pop culture references in PIMs
- 3.Data and methodology
- 4.Analysis of samples
- 4.1Explicit and implicit references to current US politicians
- 4.2Telecinematic and pop cultural components in the PIM data
- 4.3Levels and types of constructed and quoted speech in PIMpops
- 5.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
Published online: 25 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00055.kir
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00055.kir
References
Anderson, Karrin V., and Kristina Horn Sheeler
Arendholz, Jenny
Bakhtin, Mikhail
Baldwin-Philippi, Jessica
Baym, Nancy K., and danah boyd
Beaugrande, Robert de, and Wolfgang U. Dressler
Bebić, Domagoj, and Marija Volarevic
Bennett, W. Lance, and Alexandra Segerberg
Beran, Dale
Bimber, Bruce, Andrew Flanagin, and Cynthia Stohl
Boone, Gloria M., Jane Secci, and Linda M. Gallant
Briggs, Charles L., and Richard Bauman
Bruns, Axel
2008 “The future is user-led: The path towards widespread produsage.” Journal of Fibreculture 111. http://eleven.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-066-the-future-is-user-led-the-path-towards-widespread-produsage/ (accessed 8 April 2020).
Bublitz, Wolfram
Bülow, Lars, and Michael Johann
Burroughs, Ben
Dean, Jonathan
Dekker, Henk
Denisova, Anastasia
2016 “Political memes as tools of dissent and alternative digital activism in the Russian-language Twitter.” PhD dissertation, University of Westminster. https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/9zx1y/political-memes-as-tools-of-dissent-and-alternative-digital-activism-in-the-russian-language-twitter (accessed 8 April 2020).
Dynel, Marta
Fetzer, Anita, and Elda Weizman
Frazer, Ryan, and Bronwyn Carlson
Gal, Noam, Limor Shifman, and Zohar Kampf
Galan, Lucas Jordan Osserman, Tim Parker, and Matt Taylor
2019 “How young people consume news and the implications for mainstream media: A report commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-08/FlamingoxREUTERS-Report-Full-KG-V28.pdf (accessed 8 April 2020).
Garrett, Kelly R.
Gibson, Rachel K.
Groshek, Jacob, and Ahmed Al-Rawi
Gruber, Helmut
Jenkins, Henry
Johann, Michael, and Lars Bülow
2018 “Die Verbreitung von Internet-Memes. Empirische Befunde zur Diffusion von Bild-Sprache-Texten in den sozialen Medien. [The dissemination of internet memes: Empirical findings on the diffusion of image-language texts in social media].”
kommunikation @ gesellschaft
191: 1–24. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-56037-8 (accessed 8 April 2020).
Jones, Rodney H.
Karatzogianni, Athina
Kirner-Ludwig, Monika
Kirner-Ludwig, Monika, and Iris Zimmermann
Klein, Ofra
2019 “The evolution of political internet memes.” Kennedy School Review. https://ksr.hkspublications.org/2019/03/11/the-evolution-of-political-internet-memes/ (accessed 7 March 2020).
Koester, Almut, and Michael Handford
Kouloumpis, Efthymios, Theresa Wilson, and Johanna Moore
Kray, Christine A., Tamar W. Carroll, and Hinda Mandell
Kreiss, Daniel
Kuiper, Giselinde
Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ullrich K.H. Ecker, and John Cook
Lincoln, Taylor
2019 “A(meme)rican politics: Gender representation in political memes of the 2016 election.” Rochester Institute of Technology. https://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11269&context=theses (accessed 8 April 2020).
Loader, Brian D., Ariadne Vromen, and Michael A. Xenos
Lu, Yuehua
Marcus, Olivia R., and Merrill Singer
Menczer, Filippo
2012 “The diffusion of political memes in social media.” In Proceedings of the First Edition Workshop on Politics, Elections and Data – PLEAD ’12 (the First Edition Workshop), Maui, Hawaii, USA, 11/2/2012 – 11/2/2012, ed. by Ingmar Weber, Ana-Maria Popescu, and Marco Pennacchiotti. 1–2. New York: ACM Press. 

Meraz, Sharon, and Zizi Papacharissi
Meso-Ayerdi, Koldobika, Terese Mendiguren-Galdospín, and Jesús Pérez-Dasilva
Milner, Ryan M.
2013a “Pop polyvocality: Internet memes, public participation, and the Occupy Wall Street Movement.” International Journal of Communication 71: 2357–2390. http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1949 (accessed 8 April 2020).
2013b “Hacking the social: Internet memes, identity antagonism, and the logic of lulz.” The Fibreculture Journal 221: 62–92. http://twentytwo.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-156-hacking-the-social-internet-memes-identity-antagonism-and-the-logic-of-lulz/ (accessed 8 April 2020).
Moody-Ramirez, Mia, and Andrew B. Church
Myers, Greg
Nooney, Laine, and Laura Portwood-Stacer
O’Meara, Jennifer
Ott, Brian L.
Pascual, Esther, and Todd Oakley
Penney, Joel
Piata, Anna
Roelvink, Gerda
Ross, Andrew S., and Damian J. Rivers
Russell, Daniel M.
Rusu, Alexandra-Andreea
Schill, Daniel J., and John A. Hendricks
Shami, Savera, Sana N. Khan, and Ayesha Ashfaq
Shifman, Limor
Shifman, Limor, Stephen Coleman, and Stephen Ward
Sobieraj, Sarah, and Jeffrey M. Berry
Taecharungroj, Viriya, and Pitchanut Nueangjamnong
Tannen, Deborah
Tay, Geniesa
2012 “Embracing LOLitics: Popular culture, online political humor, and play.” MA thesis, University of Canterbury. https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/7091 (accessed 7 April 2020).
Terkourafi, Marina, Lydia Catedral, Iftikhar Haider, Farzad Karimzad, Jeriel Melgares, Cristina Mostacero-Pinilla, Julie Nelson, and Benjamin Weissman
Theisen, William, Joel Brogan, Pamela B. Thomas, Daniel Moreira, Pascal Phoa, Tim Weninger, and Walter Scheirer
2020 “Automatic discovery of political meme genres with diverse appearances.” arXiv:2001.06122v1 [cs.CV]. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.06122.pdf (accessed 7 April 2020).
Theocharis, Yannis
van Dijck, José
van Laer, Jeroen
Wiggins, Bradley E.
Woch, Agnieszka, and Andrzej Napieralski
Woods, Heather S., and Leslie A. Hahner