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Reinforming memes: a literature review of the status of memetic information

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Purpose: Our purpose is to reconnect memetics to information, a persistent and unclear association. Information can contribute across a span of memetic research. Its obscurity restricts conversations about “information flow,” the connections between “form” and “content,” as well as many other topics. As information is involved in cultural activity, its clarification could focus memetic theories and applications. Design/methodology/approach: Our design captures theoretical nuance in memetics by considering a long standing conceptual issue in memetics: information. A systematic review of memetics is provided by making use of the term information across literature. We additionally provide a citation analysis and close readings of what “information” means within the corpus. Findings: Our initial corpus is narrowed to 128 pivotal memetic publications. From these publications, we provide a citation analysis of memetic studies. Theoretical directions of memetics in the informational context are outlined and developed. We outline two main discussion spaces, survey theoretical interests and describe where and when information is important to memetic discussion. We also find that there are continuities in goals which connect Dawkins’s meme with internet meme studies. Originality/value: To our knowledge, this is the broadest, most inclusive review of memetics conducted, making use of a unique approach to studying information-oriented discourse across a corpus. In doing so, we provide information researchers areas in which they might contribute theoretical clarity in diverse memetic approaches. Additionally, we borrow the notion of “conceptual troublemakers” to contribute a corpus collection strategy which might be valuable for future literature reviews with conceptual difficulties arising from interdisciplinary study.

• Citation analysis
• Culture studies
• Information studies
• Systematic literature review

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• Library and Information Sciences

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• Memes Keyphrases 100%
• Memetics Keyphrases 100%
• Literature Reviews Social Sciences 100%
• Meme Social Sciences 100%
• Citation Analysis Computer Science 100%
• Systematic Review Economics, Econometrics and Finance 100%
• Discussion Space Computer Science 50%
• Cultural Activity Computer Science 50%

T1 - Reinforming memes

T2 - a literature review of the status of memetic information

AU - Smith, Alexander O.

AU - Hemsley, Jeff

AU - Tacheva, Zhasmina Y.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited.

PY - 2024/6/26

Y1 - 2024/6/26

N2 - Purpose: Our purpose is to reconnect memetics to information, a persistent and unclear association. Information can contribute across a span of memetic research. Its obscurity restricts conversations about “information flow,” the connections between “form” and “content,” as well as many other topics. As information is involved in cultural activity, its clarification could focus memetic theories and applications. Design/methodology/approach: Our design captures theoretical nuance in memetics by considering a long standing conceptual issue in memetics: information. A systematic review of memetics is provided by making use of the term information across literature. We additionally provide a citation analysis and close readings of what “information” means within the corpus. Findings: Our initial corpus is narrowed to 128 pivotal memetic publications. From these publications, we provide a citation analysis of memetic studies. Theoretical directions of memetics in the informational context are outlined and developed. We outline two main discussion spaces, survey theoretical interests and describe where and when information is important to memetic discussion. We also find that there are continuities in goals which connect Dawkins’s meme with internet meme studies. Originality/value: To our knowledge, this is the broadest, most inclusive review of memetics conducted, making use of a unique approach to studying information-oriented discourse across a corpus. In doing so, we provide information researchers areas in which they might contribute theoretical clarity in diverse memetic approaches. Additionally, we borrow the notion of “conceptual troublemakers” to contribute a corpus collection strategy which might be valuable for future literature reviews with conceptual difficulties arising from interdisciplinary study.

AB - Purpose: Our purpose is to reconnect memetics to information, a persistent and unclear association. Information can contribute across a span of memetic research. Its obscurity restricts conversations about “information flow,” the connections between “form” and “content,” as well as many other topics. As information is involved in cultural activity, its clarification could focus memetic theories and applications. Design/methodology/approach: Our design captures theoretical nuance in memetics by considering a long standing conceptual issue in memetics: information. A systematic review of memetics is provided by making use of the term information across literature. We additionally provide a citation analysis and close readings of what “information” means within the corpus. Findings: Our initial corpus is narrowed to 128 pivotal memetic publications. From these publications, we provide a citation analysis of memetic studies. Theoretical directions of memetics in the informational context are outlined and developed. We outline two main discussion spaces, survey theoretical interests and describe where and when information is important to memetic discussion. We also find that there are continuities in goals which connect Dawkins’s meme with internet meme studies. Originality/value: To our knowledge, this is the broadest, most inclusive review of memetics conducted, making use of a unique approach to studying information-oriented discourse across a corpus. In doing so, we provide information researchers areas in which they might contribute theoretical clarity in diverse memetic approaches. Additionally, we borrow the notion of “conceptual troublemakers” to contribute a corpus collection strategy which might be valuable for future literature reviews with conceptual difficulties arising from interdisciplinary study.

KW - Citation analysis

KW - Culture studies

KW - Information studies

KW - Memetics

KW - Systematic literature review

KW - Theory

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85189454608&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85189454608&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1108/JD-10-2023-0218

DO - 10.1108/JD-10-2023-0218

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:85189454608

SN - 0022-0418

JO - Journal of Documentation

JF - Journal of Documentation

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• Published: 15 September 2022

Meme culture and suicide sensitivity: a quantitative study

• Ryan Weiser   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7484-4543 1 &
• Nafees Alam 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  9 , Article number:  313 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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• Cultural and media studies
• Science, technology and society

People worldwide are bogged down with a multitude of issues, many of which may need some form of coping mechanism to counteract the negative beliefs that accompany those issues. For many, memes have become that coping mechanism. Looking at memes, the present study ascertained the effects that constant viewing of memes has on sensitivity when dealing with one of the most difficult concerns anyone can face, suicide. Using a pre-test/post-test design, participants ( n  = 51) were given a questionnaire to see how familiar they are with certain memes and to create a baseline for reactions to key phrases. The level of familiarity is broken down into three groups to understand the long-term effects of memes. The short-term effects were decided based on the intervention phase. During the intervention phase, the experimental group saw memes about suicide and depression, while the control group saw generally themed memes before the post-test was taken. Data is analyzed looking for a change between baseline and post-test results. The findings have shown that there are no long-term effects of memes which is a good sign, but there is a short-term effect and that is where the danger lies. Authors believed that findings would show a decrease in suicide sensitivity after participants view the suicide/depression-themed memes. In the end, the study found that the effects of memes are not long-term, but in fact only affect viewers for a limited time. Further research needs to be conducted in order to arrive at a more representative sample and subsequent conclusion.

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The purpose of this research study is to understand the effect of memes on suicide sensitivity. ‘Sensitivity’ is used in this study as a term for awareness and understanding of contributing factors and the overall impact of suicide. In this research, suicide sensitivity is defined as the understanding that suicide can have multiple explanations and that all cases of suicide, lethal or not, have their own stories. The sensitivity aspect relates to how well someone understands and reacts to the concept, or act, of suicide. The researchers believe that as more memes are viewed, people can become desensitized to harrowing issues that may afflict themselves or others including suicide, and suicidal ideation. The goal is to examine the possible correlation between memes and a more comical view of suicide. As meme culture permeates into their lives, people are frequently interacting with their worlds through the lens of memes. From Heylighen (1997, 1998) as cited by Mazambani et al. ( 2015 ) “when individuals encounter information through reading, listening, or observation, the information is transmitted from one person to another, leading to the transfer of information. Thus, manipulating and sharing a picture on the Internet and imitating the language of another user in a post are examples of information transmission and transfer.” These memes can be about a wide variety of topics, but the present study focused on memes related to mental health issues including depression and suicide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “every 40s, a person commits suicide in the world and calculated that for every person who commits suicide, 20 others attempt it” (WHO, 2019, 2020 as cited by Aquila et al., 2020 ). During the current pandemic, these numbers may increase, and so we must examine all possible risk factors for suicidal behaviors. For this purpose, the researchers believe that the examination of memes and their impact on suicide sensitivity is of ever-increasing importance due to their comical nature toward depression and suicide.

Background research focuses on three main themes, and was used to create a bridge for the current research question: Does meme culture impact suicide sensitivity? Currently, while there is research discussing memes, suicide in graduate students, and depression in graduate students separately, there is no research combining all three topics together to analyze how memes are connected to suicide or depression. The choice to focus on Social Work (SW) graduate students is due to the researchers wanting to study a group who faces a lot of stress, and will eventually need to cope to perform well in their chosen profession. In this study, we looked to fill in the gap in the literature by examining how memes may affect views on suicide and depression, either increasing or decreasing suicidal sensitivity. The researchers hypothesized that as meme culture permeates the worldview of Social work students, there will be a decline in suicide sensitivity in that the students will become more desensitized when they are presented with issues related to suicide.

Literature review

Meme culture in literature.

A meme is defined as a “cultural replicator that gets passed from human to human via imitation” (Dawkins in Jenkins, 2014 ). As these replicators are passed, they include information about what is funny, or interesting in the dominant culture. The more people consume a specific meme, the more likely it is that the meme will be replicated across “speech and writing” (Mazambani et al., 2015 ) and can even evolve to create new versions of the original. This replication is important because as soon as a meme is no longer passed on in some form, it becomes a dead meme. These dead memes fall off and can be likened to a product that consumers no longer wish to purchase. On the other hand, a popular meme will usually kill off other meme formats as the “increase in replication must come at the expense of the replication of another meme format” (Roy, 2017 ). In a more physical sense, memes are typically pictures that include words relating to the picture in a way to create a joke, sometimes at the expense of the picture or a topic. Memes have also evolved to include videos and gifs allowing for a wider audience to interact with them. Since the creation of memes there have been many types of memes including the current moth/lamp meme (Supplementary Graph 1) ([Untitled moth meme], 2018 ), car salesman meme (Supplementary Graph 2) ([Untitled car salesman meme], 2018 ), and even older memes including Ebola-chan (Supplementary Graph 3) ([Untitled Ebola-chan meme], 2014 ), and the classic win/fail memes (Supplementary Graph 4) ([Untitled win/fail meme], 2010 ).

Using specific examples of meme culture allows for a more in-depth analysis of how a certain meme can be spread and how it can affect culture. Cultural studies in particular aspire to derive meaning and significance from what many academics would find to be absent of academic rigor (Szeman, 2002 ). Jenkins ( 2014 ), and Marcus and Singer ( 2016 ) discuss the examples of win/fail and Ebola-chan, respectively. Win or failure modes are a popular meme format where a situation is analyzed for its intrinsic value either positively or negatively. The win or fail mode can be applied to a multitude of situations including being a bad parent (parenting fail), or even to other memes such as Ebola-Chan. In 2014, Ebola-chan was created in response to the Ebola outbreak worldwide. Marcus and Singer ( 2016 ) conclude that she represents a multi-vocal perspective in that she is a voice for those afraid of and those amused by the mortality of people. By creating the Ebola-chan meme, both modes can be applied in that those who create her are meme failures, but those that love her would see Ebola-chan as a meme win. As Ebola-chan spread, her many forms (created by artists) gave rise to new versions of the original meme. From a small child to a voluptuous woman and back, Ebola-chan has evolved to include new forms of speech and writing as proposed by Mazambani et al. ( 2015 ).

As we see the modes of win or fail in different types of memes, we must also see that memes can alter and affect behavioral responses to a great many topics. Whether this is acceptance or disgust at the creation of Ebola-chan, memes may possibly affect their own propagation. In different groups of people, memes may affect the behavior of group members leading to a greater attachment to a group, or the ideals of that group. “Memes are typically unique to each individual community and are created to mark the group as different from others in an easily identifiable fashion (Mina, 2018; Nissenbaum and Shifman 2017 as cited DeCook, 2018 ). As the community grows, the memes that members send out become a rallying cry for new members to join. As they join, they are indoctrinated under the memes affecting their behavior and ideas. When attachment to the group increases, the behavior of members may be affected leading to an increase in meme distribution and an uptick in connectivity between members (Chen, 2012 ).

Graduate students in literature

Post-undergraduate degree, the decision to continue forth toward a graduate degree comes with a new set of factors. Among graduate students, there are increased feelings of entrapment, lowered self-worth, and increased enjoyment of self-deprecation (Ask and Abidin, 2018 ). The culmination of all three creates a sort of reciprocal determinism in which the environment (graduate classes) affects the individual (entrapment/lowered self-worth) who then behaves (self-deprecation) in a way that makes them feel the environment is normal. Self-deprecation is mostly shown in the idea of one-downmanship where the individual willingly makes fun of their own bad situation trying to out-maneuver their peers to prove whose life is worse (Ask and Abidin, 2018 ).

As the student creates a meme based on one-downmanship, they are adding to the pool of meme culture predominantly based on relatability. As fellow graduate students relate to the meme, all are acknowledging and denying their own feelings of lowered self-worth and entrapment. Social comparison among graduate students may lead to these feelings as they are either trapped by their classes, lack of funds, guilt, or the success of their peers in comparison to themselves (Longfield et al., 2006 ; Sturman and Mongrain, 2008 ). These feelings hinder graduate students from enjoying time in their programs while increasing mental health issues. Chief among the issues are depression and suicide which have been shown to be increasingly more rampant in graduate communities.

Suicide in literature

Mental health in graduate students has been on the decline in recent years and under such high stress, thoughts of suicide are likely to seep into the mind. It is fascinating to note that suicide rates are highest for graduate students and those over the age of 25 (Moffitt et al., 2014 ). “Among graduate students, the rate of suicide per 100,000 was 9.1 for women and 11.6 for men, compared to 3.4/100,000 for undergraduate women and 9.1/100,000 for undergraduate men.” As many graduate students are around this age either before starting or during their programs, this statistic is quite alarming. Using the Interactive Screening Program (ISP) in colleges has been very useful in finding graduate students who are at risk of suicide attempts or ideation. Implemented by Moffitt et al. ( 2014 ), the program was designed to find students with untreated mental health issues. Following up, Garcia-Williams et al. ( 2014 ) used the ISP to administer the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to find a greater breakdown of the issues affecting graduate students. The decision to focus on graduate students is an attempt to fill in the gaps in research, related to the study of memes, left by other sources.

Previous research lacked the exploration of the difference between undergraduate and graduate students which left a gap in research to be exploited. Brownson et al. ( 2011 ) analyzed the differences and found that graduate students are less likely to attempt or ideate suicide when compared to undergraduate students. Paradoxically though, graduate students were more likely to die by suicide. The paradox created is yet another gap in research waiting to be filled in leading to Garcia-Williams et al. ( 2014 ) and Moffitt et al. ( 2014 ). Many of the factors associated with suicidal feelings in graduate students harken back to the previously discussed topic “Graduate students” which include entrapment, guilt, and lowered self-worth. Additionally, feelings of depression, hopelessness, and lack of control were reported by many of the graduate students.

Methodologies of literature

The purpose behind sampling these articles is to gather information on topics that surround the memes, the students, and suicide. By taking information from these sources, we can begin to close the gap in the literature.

Some of these articles sampled for graduate students, others sampled for chat forums with people discussing topics within entertainment and politics, and a few focused on sampling different memes and their reactions to them. To further understand the articles selected, we have analyzed them for similarities, differences, and limitations in their sampling, data collection, and testing methods. This section specifically details the methodologies employed in existing literature (mentioned throughout the literature review), not our own.

Sampling in literature

A variety of sampling methods were used in the existing literature. Web-based or internet-based (e.g. Marcus and Singer, 2016 ) method of sampling was used as well as simple random and stratified random sampling (e.g. Brownson et al., 2011 ). Internet sampling used emails to reach out to participants as well as a “web crawler” (Mazambani et al., 2015 ) to find websites and participants. The sampling technique of emailing students is called convenience sampling, which limits external validity, or generalizability. The “web crawler” is based on convenience sampling in that once the program was created, researchers simply let the program find convenient websites.

Simple random and stratified random sampling allows for more generalizability from the articles. Simple random sampling takes a population and, without creating boundaries, finds as many participants as possible. In stratified random sampling, boundaries are created in the form of categories or schools, and then researchers will attempt to find a specific amount of participants from each category. Studies using stratified random sampling chose to have 70 categories: 70 college campuses (Brownson et al., 2011 ), and choosing a specific college, Emory College (Moffitt et al., 2014 ), and the categories were different departments within the school including art history, anthropology, behavioral sciences, etc.

Data collection in literature

Existing studies generally elected to use two separate categories of data collection. First was the use of websites across the internet including Facebook, and second was the use of in-person interviews, surveys, and questionnaires, others were a mix of the two (Ask and Abidin, 2018 ): Facebook and in-person interviews to collect data.

Studies using the internet collected memes as their data, either through Facebook, or through random websites found to fit into certain categories including politics, and special interests. Once the memes were gathered, they were coded on a variety of factors including who posted the meme, and what was the content of the meme. The study that used Facebook to gather memes took a step further and used students to get anecdotal data related to the relatability of the meme content. The anecdotal data came from an in-person workshop which connects to other studies found in the existing literature. Studies using surveys or questionnaires can further be broken down to being focused on quantitative studies including the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), Stress and Depression questionnaire, Entrapment scale, etc. Existing studies have also used qualitative data collection to gain opinions and beliefs expanding beyond a simple Likert-type scale. The information gained included how relatable a meme is, and feelings related to finances, social activity, guilt, etc.

Testing in literature

Existing studies used qualitative approaches to testing in that the open-ended questions were coded based on recurring themes and analyzed. Other studies used quantitative techniques like ANOVA, Mixed methods, Chi-squared, and regression analysis.

Qualitative research methods “allow research procedures to evolve as more observations are gathered…generating deeper understandings of the meanings of human experiences” (Rubin and Babbie, 2016 ). Studies using this type of research are aiming to find out the real, in-depth responses of their participants instead of simply finding a numerical value to attribute to a question. While this method is useful to flesh out responses, there are also drawbacks including the possibility of biasing the responses. Other studies use focus groups to gather data which is helpful to gather a large amount of information all at once, but principles of conformity proposed by Solomon Asch show that in group settings we consciously desire to be similar to other people especially when we are the fourth or fifth person to present our thoughts (Lilienfeld et al., 2018 ). This desire to be similar to others can bias our responses in that we may say something completely different than what we actually think because we “want to fit in.” A qualitative study (Moffitt et al., 2014 ) used an online source to find participants willing to come in for a therapy session. The sessions were one on one, which can reduce the risk of conformity, but working one on one with a counselor can also introduce a bias. The counselor’s reactions and tone of voice alone can affect the responses of the participant as they may try to alter their answers to make the counselor happy. In both cases of qualitative research, the risk of bias was present and needed to be reduced. Bias can be removed by switching to a quantitative approach (e.g. Garcia-Williams et al., 2014 ) to research which will be the basis of the current study.

Quantitative research in literature

Quantitative research methods “typically seek to produce precise and generalizable findings” (Rubin and Babbie, 2016 , p. 46). Quantifying information in research can usually be performed using a Likert scale involving choices. Usually better to choose an odd number of choices, such as 1–5, a Likert scale will gather information using choices such as 1—“Not at all” and 5—“All the time.” The scale can be increased to include more options, such as 1–10, or even pictures instead of words (i.e. a pain chart using faces to rank pain). Like qualitative research, quantitative research includes both positive and negative factors that can either improve or jeopardize any study.

Besides reducing biases, as mentioned previously, there are a few benefits to choosing quantitative research. As questionnaires will usually use Likert scales with numbered responses, instead of open-ended questions, coding the responses is a lot simpler leading to more breadth of information gained. Researchers will simply need to take the number which relates to the response instead of reading through an entire response. This leads to the benefit of time saved; without the need to read everything stated by a student, the researchers are able to reduce the amount of time it takes to collect and analyze data. Finally, quantitative research lends itself more to statistical testing as it uses numbers generated by the participant instead of coding generated by the researchers which allow for a simpler transition into analyzed data.

Quantitative research works almost as the opposite of qualitative when it comes to the pros and cons of the two methods. The lack of a personal touch in quantitative research limits the amount of data that can be gathered. Simple numbers cannot fully engross the depth of information that qualitative research garners. This type of research is also subject to the possibility of acquiescence or naysaying which is strongly agreeing to all questions, or strongly disagreeing with all questions, respectively, on purpose. Participants are subject to boredom or fatigue which may lead to the desire to finish a task as soon as possible resulting in this behavior (Morling, 2018 ). Finally, questions are limited in that there will be no editing of the questionnaire/survey once it is created. In qualitative research, an interesting response can spawn new questions, but there will be no interesting responses when the answers must fit within the ratings of a Likert scale.

Exploratory research in literature

In social work, an exploratory research aims to fill in the gaps of previous research. “This purpose is typical when a researcher is examining a new interest, or when the subject of study is relatively new and unstudied (Rubin and Babbie, 2016 ). For the current study, no direct research has breached the topic at hand, but the research presented here is relatable. Existing research relates to meme culture for graduate students and discussions of suicide in graduate students. The creation of the current study and its subsequent results will hopefully open the path for more research to be performed relating memes to a variety of topics.

Limitations in literature

As most research, if not all, includes limitations of some sort, it is worth analyzing those sections of the supporting research. The limitations have been sorted into two categories: “Sampling” and “Data collection.” These categories allow us to see the majority of the limitations of those articles. No meta-analysis is included in the methods of the current study.

Studies that used either the internet or the web crawler to find their samples are strong with internal validity but focused on nonrandom sampling which leads to low external validity. They are unable to generalize as they are skewed towards specific populations including certain websites, and genders. Through the use of random sampling, a study can boost its external validity but as they are two sides of the same coin, internal validity will be decreased. Without internal validity, a study risks being unable to prove that it is testing what it claims to be testing. By using the methods of randomly selecting participants, you may find people who do not qualify for the study, or you may introduce factors that may confound your variables risking a skew in the data. Finally, one article chose to use stratification as its sampling technique, which can lead to higher levels of sampling error.

Data collection

Existing research used Facebook, or the internet, to collect data which can help with the amount of time it takes to gather data, but there are issues here as well. Online questionnaires and surveys offer anonymity which allows for the possibility of pretending to be another person with no oversight. Additionally, being unable to see the person responding to the survey removes the aid of body language to make sure the answers are clear and the participant is not lying. Other studies that used in-person focus groups, questionnaires, or surveys have their own limitations. By interacting with the participant, a researcher’s behavior, or tone of voice, can bias an individual’s responses to the questions. It is also possible that participants will alter their responses to the questionnaires. If a participant believes they know what the researcher wants to hear, they may change their answers to make sure they are a “good” participant or in some cases, a “bad” participant. “This phenomenon is known as socially desirable responding, or faking good/bad” (Morling, 2018 , p. 162).

Within the studies choosing to use an in-person method of data collection, there are limitations to the question of qualitative versus quantitative. Studies that used qualitative data collection are limited by the need for high interrater reliability. Requiring multiple people to agree on the topics introduced in response before it can be coded takes time and effort away from other responses, or participants. Other studies using quantitative data collection methods did not allow for variation in responses or depth of information. While breadth is gained, losing depth reduces the ability to gain insight into the answers given by participants.

Results in literature

As the research question of the current study has not already been explored, it is important to analyze the results based on the original three major themes presented. Existing research discusses meme culture which shows that memes are spread based on a cultural understanding. Studies also discuss the mental health status of graduate students and the last three articles focus on the suicidal ideation/attempts by graduate students. Some memes are spread based on rhetoric such as winning or failing, while others may be passed along because they relate to a group of people. There is humor in the one-downmanship displayed by students trying to relate to one another, while the Ebola-chan meme tries to alienate and scare other meme consumers, which is to say that some memes are created for comedy, while others may be created for the sake of harming others. This alienation may be the desired effect of Ebola-chan as it may make others feel despair at the rise of Ebola, but may also bring joy to other consumers who find it funny with no other way of expressing that humor. Graduate students have displayed feelings of depression, suicide, anxiety, etc., and while the scores are lower than undergraduate students, the suicide rates are highest for graduate students over the age of 25 (Moffitt et al., 2014 ). The results of the existing research reviewed paint a picture of increasing rates of depression and suicide along with the increase and spread of memes. As there may be an illusory correlation between memes and suicide, the current study aims to find out how desensitization to suicide in graduate students may be due to the spread of meme culture.

Methodology

Overall design.

A quantitative research design is employed for this study to find a baseline and then post-intervention data. The choice for quantitative methods was simple as the researchers want to promote easily analyzed data while reducing the chance of biasing responses. As we looked at how participants responded to emotionally charged statements and rated them on their level of agreement, biasing responses could lead to skewed results causing the possibility of type I or II errors. Likert scales were employed to gather data on meme familiarity and agreement/disagreement on feelings about suicide. The participants were students enrolled in the College of Staten Island’s (CSI) Social Work program and were recruited using purposive convenience sampling during the 2019 Spring semester.

Participants and sampling

Participants.

For the purposes of the study, the researchers used purposive convenience sampling to find participants. In quantitative research, more participants are needed and as such, it is beneficial for the researchers to pull participants from the population of SW students enrolled at CSI. Participation in the study was entirely voluntary, did not impact any students if they decided not to participate, and there was no benefit to participating if they decided to be in the study. All of the students in the program are above the age of 18 and all either have or will have bachelor's degrees in various fields which can be assumed because they are enrolled as social work majors, or are in an accredited master’s level program. All other demographic data will be obtained using a questionnaire to be discussed later.

Being in the same program, or working with professors in the program, made the population of students available to the researchers. SW students offer a rare trait that needs to be analyzed making them perfect candidates for this study. They are based in a caring field designed to create professionals who care deeply for other people, sometimes at their own expense. When the student becomes licensed, they are fully able to work in this field helping others deal with intimate traumas and difficulties where other professionals may not be able to perform. One would imagine that these SW students are highly sensitive to the plight of others including feelings of depression, suicide, and suicidal ideation. What happens when that sensitivity decreases? What could cause that sensitivity to decrease?

Memes have become vehicles to spread ideas, jokes, and beliefs among the vast majority of people using social media, or simply the internet. SW students are not immune to spreading memes, and these memes can encompass many different topics including politics, food, movies, or even suicide and depression. The interaction between suicide/depression memes and Suicide sensitivity is the basis of this research, but could memes be the reason for a decrease in sensitivity? The current research is designed to answer this question, and the researchers believed that findings would show that memes would highly correlate with a decrease in sensitivity as viewership rises. The implications of decreased sensitivity in SW students may highly impact their ability to correctly treat a client in future interactions. In worst-case scenarios, intervention strategies may need to be discussed before final licensure.

Knowing the population of SW students is available to the researchers, purposive convenience sampling will be used to narrow down the participants. Over 100 students are enrolled in the MSW program alone and we looked for about 50–60 participants to join the study, eventually finding 51 participants. The researchers visited multiple lectures in an effort to personally introduce the study to the SW student population. The introduction of the study is limited so as not to give away the main hypothesis of the study, but with enough detail to let participants have a broad understanding of what is expected of them when they volunteered to join the study. Before coming to conduct the study, the researchers had the professor of the course email the link to the study to the class. All students in the program are required to have email addresses registered with the school and so it is safe to assume that the entire population will have access to a computer. If not, the participants were able to access the link using their phones. Participants were broken down into experimental and control groups based on the order of classes visited where experimental group members were tested first in one class and then followed by another class devoted solely to the control group.

When participants clicked on the link they were brought to a page where they read over the informed consent and needed to agree before being given the link which lead to the questionnaire. The questionnaire given is the same regardless of the assigned group and included 25 questions. The first eight questions are demographic ranging from race, age, religiosity, etc. Following demographic questions, there were five memes using a Likert scale to determine familiarity with memes (Supplementary Graphs 5–9). The scales were measured from one to three where one is “Not at all familiar” and three is “Very familiar.” The memes used in this part are combinations of new, old, common, or obscure such as the spider-man meme archetype which is common, yet old. Meanwhile, in contrast, the car salesman meme archetype is new/common and the Loops cat meme archetype is new/obscure. These memes are part of the general culture of memes and can reliably show familiarity.

The final 12 questions, or phrases, use a different Likert scale which is rated from one to seven, where one is “Strongly disagree” and seven is “Strongly agree.” Each question is a specific phrase or belief in which the participant is to rate their feelings about suicide. These are special as only these 12 questions were used as part of the pre and post-test, while the first 13 were only used before the intervention phase. Once the first 25 questions were answered, participants in both groups saw a stop sign telling them to wait for further instructions. Once all participants were ready, the researchers showed a presentation of memes as the intervention phase. The intervention phase has two versions depending on which group you were assigned. Both groups were shown 10 memes for 30 s each for a total of five minutes; the control group was shown generally themed memes while the experimental group is shown 10 suicide/depression themed memes. After the 5 min were up, both groups were brought back to a post-test which consisted of the same 12 questions/phrases used at the end of the pre-test. Here they responded in the same Likert scale system of one to seven that they used prior. The researchers hoped to find a difference in scores for the experimental group after viewing the suicide/depression-themed memes.

The Suicide Sensitivity Scale

The Suicide Sensitivity Scale is comprised of the 12 questions mentioned at the end of the questionnaire. The goal of the scale is to determine how sensitive a person is to the topic of suicide by asking specific questions created by the researchers. The 12 phrases include ideas such as “I find it unpleasant to think about suicide,” “Suicidal ideation needs to be addressed regardless of the situation.” and “The only outcome of depression is suicide.” The questions were designed to show high and low sensitivity to suicide, as well as positive and negative views of the topic. To test the reliability of the scale, the researchers will be using a Cronbach alpha, and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

Both groups were shown memes, chosen by the researchers, which have been sourced from multiple internet locations such as Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit. The experimental group’s suicide/depression memes (Supplementary Graphs 10–19) and the control group’s general memes (Supplementary Graphs 20–29) come from social media and image-sharing websites. When looking at suicide/depression memes, the goal is to poke fun at the topic by mentioning death and partnering it with a picture. These can include phrases like “I want to die” at the end of a sentence to rhyme with pie and “I no longer wish to Bee alive” with a picture of a cartoon bee. The general memes used are also trying to elicit humor, but in a way that focuses on lighter-hearted topics such as wanting to get food before other people and pushing them out of the way, or making puns about older phrases like “he’s the bee’s knees.” The memes used were chosen, not for their relation to the participants or the field of social work, but because they are essentially found at random.

Data analysis

Data is analyzed using quantitative methods, including correlations between pre- and post-test answers for short-term effects, and using a one-way ANOVA testing familiarity and pre-test answers for long-term effects. The Likert scales used numbers to represent ideas instead of having the participant write out an entire response. By using quantitative data, we reduced biasing by both the researchers and the participants as everyone must fall within set responses. It is worth using demographic questions to understand the scope of our participants, but the main data to analyze started at question 9, the start of meme familiarity. As there were five memes in familiarity, each rated one to three, the highest score is 15 while the lowest score is five. Scoring between five and eight is considered low familiarity, nine to 12 is considered medium, and 13–15 points is rated as highly familiar with memes. The basis of the first part of the hypothesis would state that the more familiar a participant is with memes, the lower their sensitivity to suicide/depression will be at pre-test showing a long-term effect.

The last 12 questions/phrases were scored on a one to seven scales but some of the phrases were scored in reverse. For these questions, sensitivity is defined as an understanding of the multi-faceted idea of suicide, meaning that there are sometimes hidden reasons one may commit suicide and we may never know the whole story. Questions one, two, four, five, six, and nine were scored going forward in that higher agreement leads to more sensitivity. In comparison, questions three, seven, eight, 10, 11, and 12 were scored in reverse where higher disagreement leads to more sensitivity. The lowest possible score is 12, while the highest possible score is 84. Scoring closer to 12 shows someone is highly desensitized to suicide and depression while scoring closer to 84 shows someone who is highly sensitive to the issue. The range of scores in sensitivity would be 12–30 (low), 31–48 (mild), 49–67 (medium), and 68–84 (high). Sensitivity scores were calculated for pre- and post-intervention to see the differences and to test the second part of the hypothesis that showing suicide/depression memes will cause short-term desensitization.

Ethics and human subject considerations

Information coding.

For the purpose of the study, the names of the participants are available to the researchers only. As participants were sorted into one of two groups, they received numerical coding to hide their identity either being E1-29, or C1-22. Each participant was coded after their responses were recorded, and then all of their data was deleted. Participants who wished to continue with the study had their responses saved on a USB drive, hidden behind a password, and anonymized. Identifying information was saved on a laptop in the possession of the researchers using a different password to lock away the information. In total, there were two passwords, and the USB drive and laptop were stored separately. When the study has been published, data will be deleted electronically from both the laptop and the USB drive. No traces will be left electronically, and no traces will have been created physically.

Participation

There are no potential benefits to participating in this study and there are also no consequences for not participating, however, there may be potential risks to participation. The questionnaire asked questions related to suicide and depression, and the intervention phase showed suicide/depression-themed memes that may elicit feelings that need to be addressed. At the end of the post-test, before logging off the study, participants were given time to speak with the researchers gathering data to ask questions related to the study and processing their emotions. The researchers always made mentions of the counseling services offered on campus and took the time to make sure all participants were satisfied with their questions. Participants were not paid for their volunteering and knew that they could withdraw consent, ceasing participation, at any time.

The sample used in the study included 51 participants where 43 were female, 6 were male, and 2 either refused to answer or stated “other” (Supplementary Table/Graph 1 ). Of the 51, they identified their ethnicities as 7 Asian, 13 Black or African American, 6 Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish, 2 Middle Eastern, 19 white, 2 preferred not to answer, and 2 used “other” (Supplementary Table/Graph 2 ) based upon the classifications created for the study. Their ages ranged from 20 years old to 49 years old, but three participants were missing from the data which could skew the range (Supplementary Table/Graph 3 ). Most of the participants came from Staten Island (36), while 12 are from Brooklyn, 1 were from queens, and two either did not answer or used “other” (Supplementary Table/Graph 4 ). Most participants identified as Spiritual (8), but most answers were scattered as they were allowed to fill in any religious choice they had (Supplementary Table/Graph 5 ).

It is interesting to note that most participants are in a relationship with one partner (37), and this was followed up by 11 who were not in a relationship (Supplementary Table/Graph 6 ), and most were unmarried (23) (Supplementary Table/Graph 7 ). It would be a great follow-up to see if relationship status also increases the effects of memes on sensitivity. What is most important from the sample is to note that most of the students will graduate in two years (29), followed by 11 not answering, 10 graduating in 3 years, and 1 in 4 years time (Supplementary Table/Graph 8 ). Additionally, 18 participants were in the MSW clinical track, 14 MSW foundation students, 13 BSW students, and 5 MSW Macro students (Supplementary Table/Graph 9 ). A further study could analyze the effects of the program of study, and the speed at which students complete the degree.

On an analytical level, the use of students as participants holds both pros and cons. The benefits of utilizing a student population may include their interaction with the internet and memes. Most students are engaged at some level with social media and the internet raising their likelihood of interacting with memes. While the general population may also interact with memes, a large proportion of the student population includes a younger crowd, roughly 18–21 years of age, who are considered to be more avid consumers of social media (Mazambani et al., 2015 ). On the other hand, the negative effects of utilizing a student population may be the lack of representativeness. While campuses do include many races, ages, ethnicities, and a great many different factors, they do only include those who are able to attend or afford to attend. In performing an analysis, a lack of representation could cause a potential limitation.

Descriptive statistics

Scores were analyzed based on the group assigned to the participants where 29 were in the experimental group and 22 subjects were in the control group. It is worth noting that the two groups have an uneven number of participants due to the issues with scheduling and time constraints of the college semester. For the 12 questions asked, the mean score is taken separating the two groups, both before and after the intervention phase. This is done to compare the actual choices made between groups on each individual question. Supplementary Tables 10 and 11 show the difference between before and after the intervention phase for the experimental group, while Supplementary Tables 12 and 13 are for the control group. Starting with the experimental group, and looking at Supplementary Table/Graph 14a–d , shows one participant shifting towards desensitization, but mostly towards sensitivity for “unpleasant.” The next question in Supplementary Table/Graph 15a–d shows a change towards sensitivity for “family” where one participant changes a response from disagreeing to somewhat agree. “Selfish” is in Supplementary Table/Graph 16a–d , and shows a shift towards both directions, while Supplementary Table/Graph 17a–d , “understand,” shows mostly desensitization. Supplementary Table/Graph 18a–d , “easy,” shows a pooling of responses around neutral, and Supplementary Table/Graph 19a–d , shows more sensitivity for “ideation.” “Should” is recorded in Supplementary Table/Graph 20a–d and shows more sensitivity, and “happy” in Supplementary Table/Graph 21a–d has participants going in both directions. There is pooling into the middle for “help” in Supplementary Table/Graph 22a–d , but Supplementary Table/Graph 23a–d for “getover” showed no real difference. Supplementary Tables/Graphs 24 and 25a–d for the questions “annoy” and “depressicide” both show a pooling toward the neutral response. Finally, “sensitivity” in Supplementary Table/Graph 26a–d showed no overall change at all for the experimental group.

In the control group, Supplementary Table/Graph 27a–d , “unpleasant,” shows a pooling towards the middle, while “family” in Supplementary Table/Graph 28a–d , showed no real difference. “Selfish” in Supplementary Table/Graph 29a–d , saw a shift towards sensitivity, and Supplementary Table/Graph 30a–d for “understand” showed a pooling of responses towards neutral. “Easy” showed a shift towards desensitization in Supplementary Table/Graph 31a–d , and “ideation” in Supplementary Table/Graph 32a–d , had participants answering more sensitively. In Supplementary Table/Graph 33a–d , “should” shifted towards sensitivity, and “happy” showed no real difference in Supplementary Table/Graph 34a–d . For the question “help,” participants shifted in both directions shown in Supplementary Table/Graph 35a–d , while “getover,” “annoy,” and “depressicide” have no real difference in Supplementary Tables/Graphs 36 , 37 , and 38a–d . Finally, Supplementary Table/Graph 39a–d for “sensitivity” showed an overall decrease in sensitivity for the control group with some people shifting into the medium category.

Inferential statistics

Bivariate correlations.

Bivariate correlations were used to analyze the short-term effects of memes on suicide sensitivity. The participants were broken down into two groups: experimental groups who viewed memes on suicide/depression, and a control group who viewed memes on general ideas. Responses were recorded for the 12 questions using a Likert-type scale from one to seven, and scores were compared before and after the intervention phase. Correlations were chosen to see how the effect of memes changed the scores towards sensitization or desensitization. Once all scores were compared pre- and post-intervention, a sensitivity score is created by combining the scores of all 12 questions where 12 is the lowest score and 84 is the highest possible score. The 13 tests were run to see how the intervention worked on the 12 questions independently, and then as an aggregate score. The experimental and the control group are compared simultaneously to see where the stronger effect took place.

“I find it unpleasant to think about suicide” shows significance in both groups, and moderate correlational strength. The experimental group has a statistical significance of p  = 0.012 and a correlation of r  = 0.460. The control group shows significance as well with p  = 0.026, and a correlation of r  = −0.472. The experimental group shows more significance and a weaker correlation than the control group (Supplementary Tables 40 and 41 ). The next question “If someone in my family committed suicide I would be upset,” showed a slight difference in results (Supplementary Tables 42 and 43 ). Significance was found in both groups, but the correlation between the two groups varied. The control group showed a correlation of r  = 0.985, while the experimental group showed a correlation of r  = 0.421. Both showed a significance where the control group ( p  < 0.000) has a greater significance than the experimental group ( p  = 0.023).

Supplementary Tables 44 and 45 showed the significance and correlation of the question “People who commit suicide are selfish.” This question showed a reverse scoring where the highest choice is “strongly disagree” leading to more sensitivity. The experimental group has a statistical significance of p  = 0.001, while the control group showed p  < 0.000. Once more, a stronger correlation is found in the control group ( r  = 0.779) while the experimental group has a correlation of r  = 0.605. Both were strong relationships, but the experimental group is weaker in both categories. “I can understand why people would want to commit suicide,” in Supplementary Tables 46 and 47 , is the first question where both groups showed a significance of p  < 0.000 although it is important to note that they may not be exactly equal when showing a p of 0.000. The correlations for the experimental group ( r  = 0.672) were weaker than the control group's correlation of r  = 0.781.

The experimental group for the question “I would consider suicide to be the easy way out” has a moderately positive correlation of r  = 0.639, and the control group showed an r of 0.576. This is the first question where the correlation is stronger for the experimental group and both groups showed a statistical significance where the experimental is p  < 0.000 and the control is p  = 0.005 (Supplementary Tables 48 and 49 ). No significance ( p  = 0.563) was found for the experimental group when asked to rate “Suicidal ideation needs to be addressed regardless of the situation,” while there was significance again for the control group ( p  < 0.000). This non-significance for the experimental group transferred to the correlations as well since the control group ( r  = 0.706) has a strong positive correlation while the experimental group showed a weak positive correlation of r  = 0.112 (Supplementary Tables 50 and 51 ).

For the statement “Some people should commit suicide,” which is coded in reverse, the experimental group held more significance ( p  < 0.000) and a stronger correlation ( r  = 0.717). The control group's correlation of r  = 0.657, and significance of p  = 0.001 is the first question where the control group has weaker results (Supplementary Tables 52 and 53 ). In Supplementary Tables 54 and 55 , there is another reverse coding for the statement “People would be happier if I were dead.” Opposite of the previous question, the experimental group has a lower significance ( p  = 0.006) and a weaker correlation of r  = 0.494 which is moderate. The correlation of the control group ( r  = 0.973) is considered very strong, and the significance found is p  < 0.000. Both groups showed significance, but there is more strength in the control group.

“People who commit suicide are just depressed and needed help” is the second question where the experimental group showed no significance ( p  = 0.103) while the control group is not only significant ( p  < 0.000), but also showed a strong positive correlation of r  = 0.727 (Supplementary Tables 56 and 57 ). The experimental group and control group of the statement “People who are depressed need to just get over it” showed an equal significance of p  < 0.000, and is scored in reverse (Supplementary Tables 58 and 59 ). There is a stronger correlation of r  = 0.987 for the experimental group, but the control group is almost as strong with a correlation of r  = 0.901. In Supplementary Tables 60 and 61 , we reverse scored the statement “I find it annoying to deal with people who have depression.” The experimental group showed a strong positive correlation of r  = 0.952, while the control group showed an almost equally strong positive correlation of r  = 0.921. Both groups showed an equal significance of p  < 0.000.

The last statement, “The only outcome of depression is suicide,” is scored in reverse and also showed no significance for the experimental group. The control group on the other hand is significant ( p  < 0.000) and has a strong positive correlation of r  = 0.892 (Supplementary Tables 62 and 63 ). The final correlation looked at all of scores on statements added up to create the sensitivity score for each participant. Based on the groups, the sensitivity score should show how participants were affected overall instead of based on individual questions. Supplementary Tables 64 and 65 show the strong significance of the experimental group ( p  < 0.000), and the control group ( p  = 0.007). The correlations of the two groups are not too far apart with the control group being of moderate strength ( r  = 0.554) and the experimental group showing a strong positive correlation of 0.724.

One-Way ANOVA

A one-way ANOVA is designed to test multiple levels of one independent variable (IV) against the mean of the dependent variable (DV), but for the purpose of the study, the IV is used to test an effect on 13 means. The levels of familiarity were low, medium, and high and were tested against the 12 questions on their own, with sensitivity as the 13th mean, to test if familiarity with memes makes a person desensitized long term. Most of the participants rated themselves as being low familiarity (27), followed by 17 participants scoring as medium, and only seven of the 51 participants were rated as having high familiarity (Supplementary Table/Graph 66 ) Experimental or control groups were no longer taken into account because we are looking for only long-term effects, and not what happens depends on which memes the participant is shown. This is simply to take pre-intervention data and compare it to ratings of meme familiarity. In Supplementary Table 67 , the 12 questions were shown to have no significance across all familiarities. In line with the individual questions, sensitivity scores for every participant also showed no significance regardless of familiarity (Supplementary Table 68 ). No Post-hoc testing was performed as they are generally computed only for finding the exact point of significance, but in this case, no significance was found.

Scale Reliability Statistics

The Suicide Sensitivity Scale was created by the researchers for this study and is designed to determine the sensitivity that a person has towards the topic of suicide. For analytical purposes, the questions titled “Selfish,” “Should,” “Happy,” “Get over,” “Annoy,” and “Depressicide” were re-reversed to match the other six questions. When creating a new scale, it is important to determine reliability. The researchers used Cronbach’s alpha and an EFA to judge the reliability of The Suicide Sensitivity Scale, which showed a low internal consistency, α  = 0.407 (Supplementary Table 69 ). With 12 items included, this is low reliability, but when looking at the Item-Total Statistics (Supplementary Table 70 ), it is revealed that deleting six specific items on the questionnaire would bring upon a more acceptable internal consistency, α  = 0.624 (Supplementary Table 71 ), and Inter-Item Correlation Mean of 0.216 (Supplementary Table 72 ). The six specific items removed were “Understand,” “Should,” “Happy,” “Get over,” “Annoy,” and “Depressicide.”

As for the EFA, it is revealed that there are four components to this scale, Factor 1 has an Eigenvalue of 2.451 and accounted for a variance of 20.421. Subsequently, Factor two has an Eigenvalue of 2.001, the variance of 16.675; Factor three has an Eigenvalue of 1.673, the variance of 13.640, and Factor four has an Eigenvalue of 1.297, the variance of 10.810 making these four factors account for 61.546 percent of the total variance (Supplementary Table 73 ). Factor 1 consists of three items and is called “Low Sensitivity to suicide,” Factor 2 consists of four items and has been dubbed “Negative view of suicide.” Factor 3 holds four items and is considered “High sensitivity to suicide” and Factor 4 has one item and is the only “Positive view of suicide” (Supplementary Table 74 ). It is also worth noting that if the same six items were removed, there would only be two factors accounting for 57.739 percent of the total variance (Supplementary Table 75 ), where Factor 1 (“Sensitivity”) consists of four items, and Factor 2 (“Views”) consists of two items (Supplementary Table 76 ). Further research needs to be conducted in order to arrive at a more representative sample and subsequent conclusion.

Findings explained

In the correlations of the 12 questions, nine out of the 12 showed significance for the experimental group, but the control group showed significance for all 12 questions asked. The questions based on ideation, help, and depression were found to be non-significant for the experimental group, and four of the questions have a stronger correlation. The control group showed a stronger correlation for the other eight questions, and sensitivity has a stronger correlation for the experimental group. Most questions for the experimental group (4) were either more sensitively answered, or pooled towards the neutral responses, but only one question (“understand”) became more desensitized after the intervention. Conversely, the control group has most questions (5) showing no difference after the intervention with only one question (“easy”) being desensitized and three (“selfish”, “ideation”, and “should”) being more sensitive. Sensitivity is scored on a rating of low, mild, medium, and high based on adding up the scores of each participant. The experimental group showed no change in sensitivity, but the control group showed a decrease.

The study is designed with the hope that suicide/depression memes would cause a decrease in sensitivity, but the results are showing either a pooling of answers toward neutral or sensitization, which is the opposite of what was hypothesized. The individual questions related to “unpleasant”, “family”, “ideation”, and “should” became more sensitive, but because of the differences in the questions, it is hard to say that the individual questions really determine anything besides that some will be more sensitive, and others will become desensitized. On the other hand, the most often result of no difference for the control group’s questions showed that general memes do less for the social worker. Individually, the questions showed that suicide/depression memes will more likely make a social worker more sensitive when compared to general memes, but sensitivity as a whole is more important.

The most interesting result from the correlations comes from the sensitivity score as that looks at the overall differences in a person based on the meme type they saw. The experimental group showed a stronger effect of memes, but the control group is the only one that actually changed post-intervention. The experimental group showed no real difference between pre and post-intervention, but the decrease in the control group’s sensitivity is the main statistic to explore. This decrease in sensitivity shows that general memes have an effect on social work students that make them less caring and possibly worse in their ability to work with and empathize with clients. These results are understood in a way that fails to reject the null hypothesis of the second part of the hypothesis that suicide/depression memes cause desensitization. In fact, suicide/depression memes, overall, have no effect while general memes are really leading to desensitization. The small effect of sensitization of suicide/depression memes on individual questions makes sense if it is understood to be simply bringing up the issue makes one more susceptible to the negative feelings associated with it. Meanwhile, general memes are simply funny and that comical power protects a social work student from negative feelings like a guardian angel, but both of these effects are only short-term.

The 1st part of the hypothesis is to find a long-term effect of memes based on the familiarity scored by individual participants. When a participant is more familiar with memes, we proposed that they would be more desensitized to suicide/depression, and if they rated themselves with less familiarity, they would be more sensitive. The memes that were shown to test familiarity were general memes based on being new, old, common, or obscure and we found that most participants rated themselves as having low familiarity, so they should be more sensitive according to our hypothesis. After running the ANOVA and seeing a complete lack of significance between familiarity and the 12 questions individually, or when the scores are combined into the sensitivity score, we can conclude that the results fail to reject the null hypothesis. No level of familiarity led to a more sensitive or desensitized response to the pre-intervention answers which shows a lack of a long-term effect of memes. While this does fail to reject the null hypothesis, this is good news in that social work students can freely browse memes without fear of being affected when working with clients.

Implications

As a cultural replicator, memes are not regulated in any way and the sharing of ideas can run rampant in the meme community. Anyone with internet access can view memes and this includes professional Social Workers who may enjoy memes in their spare time. The small short-term effect of suicide/depression memes on individual questions may mean that bringing up the topic of suicide or depression before a session with a client can lead to more sensitivity to the issue. On the other hand, Social Workers may need to be wary of general memes as those led to an actual decrease in sensitivity overall. The worry here is that general memes are more accessible than suicide/depression memes, so there needs to be cautious when viewing these memes before working with a client.

As mentioned previously, the memes gathered for the study come from social media and it is on these platforms that people can engage with both general and suicide/depression memes. Now while it is true that social media sites come with algorithms to determine the content that you see, it is also true that once the algorithm determines your likes and dislikes, you are most likely not breaking out of that pattern. This means that once we start to see any type of meme mentioned in this study, we are more likely to continue seeing those memes. As we continue the upward trend of internet usage, social media use increases as well leading to a possible increase in meme viewership or behavioral changes. With either effect, increased viewership could lead to a higher likelihood of being affected by either type of meme.

As the study focused on Social Workers, it is worth mentioning that they are not immune to these effects and can be influenced by them in the same way as anyone else viewing the memes. The behavior of social workers may be impacted as well, potentially increasing the frequency of sharing and viewing of memes, subsequently impacting the connectivity among members of the group. The connection between the memes, and the Social Work profession, may lead to new behaviors in a professional setting. That is to say that it may be worthwhile for Social Workers to examine these behavioral changes before engaging with clients, just as they would show caution for the simple viewing of the meme types. Further research needs to be conducted in order to arrive at a more representative sample and subsequent conclusion.

Limitations

There are five limitations that should be examined within the structure of the research. The memes chosen for familiarity and for both versions of the intervention were chosen based on the humor of the researchers, and may not be inherently funny to all participants. This lack of comedy can lead participants to disconnect from the memes. Another possible disconnect may have come from the timing of the slides. Each meme is shown for 30 s, and if the participant is a fast reader, or did not care for the meme, then waiting for 30 s may be too long. The participant may become disinterested whilst waiting for the next meme. Next, the 12 statements that needed to be rated were very intense, and as participants had to give their names so that they can be sorted into groups, participants may have felt uncomfortable answering some of the scales. It is the hope of the researchers that participants answered honestly, but the worry that providing responses to statements such as “Some people should commit suicide” would become polarizing is always of concern. The limited sample size and representativeness may have also influenced the found results of both short-term and long-term effects. An increase in sample size and a focus on representation may increase the chances of the effects. Finally, the lower internal consistency revealed through Cronbach’s alpha is disconcerting for the reliability of the scale. If questions do need to be deleted to improve the internal consistency, this may be a possible future direction

Future directions

As there are short-term effects of memes, both increasing and decreasing sensitivities, the next step for the research is to focus on the duration of the short-term effects. Since long-term effects are not significant, then at what point do Social Workers need to stop viewing memes before a session with a client? As this study is focused on social work students, we cannot generalize to other professions or even majors within a school. Another study could look into how memes affect teachers, lawyers, doctors, or any profession that involves sensitivity to suicide or depression. Additionally, can memes be adopted for therapeutic use? As they increase or decrease sensitivity in Social Workers, can memes also make it easier for clients to open up in a session? Finally, as previously mentioned, it may be worthwhile to re-run this study with an updated version of The Suicide Sensitivity Scale with only the six items included.

Memes have become such a part of daily life that everyone with access to the internet has either seen a meme, shared a meme, or created a meme at least once. Humans have always been social and the usage of memes is just another way for us to spread information and ideas to as many people as possible. Social workers are not immune to the spread of memes but unlike other professions, they are in a position where the effect of memes could be potentially hazardous to others. The findings have shown that there are no long-term effects of memes which is a good sign, but there is a short-term effect and that is where the danger lies. The effects found may also be attributed to the sample size itself and it may be possible for a greater effect to show itself should the sample size be increased. General memes, which cause desensitization, should not be viewed before working with a client, although the time frame is not yet known for when the viewing of memes should stop prior to a session. Research on memes is still a new concept, but hopefully, we will eventually understand the full effects of meme culture. Further research needs to be conducted in order to arrive at a more representative sample and subsequent conclusion.

Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/VRJT5T .

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[Untitled Ebola-chan meme] (2014) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ebola-chan

[Untitled car salesman meme] (2018) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slaps-roof-of-car

[Untitled moth meme] (2018) https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1413800-moth-lamp

[Untitled win/fail meme] (2010) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/win-epic-win-for-the-win

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Weiser, R., Alam, N. Meme culture and suicide sensitivity: a quantitative study. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 9 , 313 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01320-3

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Online Information Review

ISSN : 1468-4527

Article publication date: 16 August 2024

Several businesses have begun to use memes as part of social media marketing. Although memes have been independently explored through various theories, their use in social media marketing has not yet been explored. This study analyzes theories used to study memes and suggests popular marketing theories to do the same for memes in social media marketing.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employed a mixed methodology. We used the Scopus database and the SPAR-4 protocol to gather, organize, and evaluate the literature. A bibliometric analysis was performed to understand the themes explored in the literature. Manual content analysis was performed to identify the theories used to elucidate study memes.

We profiled meme research through a bibliometric analysis. Relevance theory, Rhetoric theory, Theories of humor, Evolutionary theory, and the theory of conceptual blending are the most frequently used theories in meme literature. Furthermore, we found that the marketing theories used to study memes are limited.

Practical implications

The findings of this study will benefit academia, marketers, and social media managers by offering a comprehensive picture of theories used in meme research. It also suggests new avenues for conducting future research on memes based on identified theories.

Originality/value

This is one of the first known studies to employ both bibliometric and content analyses to review theories in meme literature. Furthermore, we suggest marketing theories and research questions to explain meme marketing.

• Meme marketing
• Internet memes
• Theoretical review
• Advertising

Kamath, C. and Alur, S. (2024), "Internet memes and social media marketing: a review of theories", Online Information Review , Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-11-2023-0584

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Meme Templates as Expressive Repertoires in a Globalizing World: A Cross-Linguistic Study

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Asaf Nissenbaum, Limor Shifman, Meme Templates as Expressive Repertoires in a Globalizing World: A Cross-Linguistic Study, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , Volume 23, Issue 5, September 2018, Pages 294–310, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmy016

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This study uses meme templates as a lens for exploring cultural globalization. By conceptualizing such templates as expressive repertoires that simultaneously enable and limit expression, we examined global and local dimensions of mainstream meme culture. We traced the top 100 templates in meme generators in English, German, Spanish, and Chinese, using 10 examples to typify each (n = 4000). Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, we examined the forms, social identities, and emotions embedded in these templates. Our findings demonstrated that whereas meme templates are dominated by American/Western pop culture, local templates are also evident, especially in Chinese. Overall, memes are socially conservative yet emotionally disruptive; while they align with hegemonic representation patterns, their emotional palette tilts toward the negative, with anger as a major anchor and happiness expressed ironically. Finally, our findings suggested an individualism–collectivism puzzle, wherein emotions in memes seem to contradict the existing literature on cultural values.

The significance of Internet memes is rooted, to a certain extent, in their apparent lack of significance. As small pieces of content that are mundanely passed around by Internet users, memes do much more then entertain; indeed, a growing body of research has demonstrated that they are used for an array of purposes such as emotional expression, community building, and political protest ( Milner, 2016 ; Shifman, 2013 ). While memes have been filling such roles in an expanding list of locales ( Ekdale & Tully, 2013 ; Mina, 2014 ; Pearce, 2015 ; Wiggins, 2016 ), to date their modes of appearance across the world have not been examined comparatively.

This article is based on the premise that such a comparative account of how memes are used in different places will shed light on fundamental questions about cultural globalization in the digital age. Since memes both represent and construct social perceptions, and, technologically at least, their diffusion across national borders is easier than ever, they may facilitate the creation of global digital cultures . Memes may also be used to construct local digital cultures , in which attributes specific to a certain cultural setting are highlighted and maintained. This study aimed to systematically trace, for the first time, these global and local dimensions of meme cultures.

But culture is a fuzzy concept. Our attempt to break it down into tangible manifestations builds on literature about Internet memes as unique forms of communication, characterized by a twofold duality between individuality/collectivity and content/stance . The first dyad relates to memes’ articulation as both creations of groups and spaces for personal expression ( Milner, 2016 ). This is epitomized in memes’ structures, in which a shared base functions as a template that directs the creation of unique instances ( Segev, Nissenbaum, Stolero, & Shifman, 2015 ). As such, meme templates constitute a repertoire that both enables and limits expression. The second duality relates to content and stance. Shifman (2013) defined three dimensions that can be either imitated or altered in the course of memetic diffusion: form (layout and physical components), content (ideas and ideologies), and stance (the positioning of the author in relation to the message). The boundaries between the two latter dimensions blur in meme templates. While such templates convey information about the world (i.e., content), they also invite individuals to position themselves in relation to this content (i.e., stance). We examine two realms in which this content/stance duality is particularly manifest and are relevant to cultures around the world: social identities and emotional expression.

We open by presenting our conceptual framework—the perception of Internet memes as individual and collective expressive repertoires in global digital cultures, which are used for both representation and stance building toward social identities and emotions. We then describe the main methods used to explore these dimensions: a comparative analysis of a corpus of 400 meme templates (and 4000 meme instances) in English, German, Spanish, and Chinese. The analysis focused on the formats, social identities, and emotional expressions found in memetic repertoires, revealing both global communalities and enclaves of cultural uniqueness. In conclusion we present three overarching tensions manifest in the global flows of memetic content.

Meme templates as glocal expressive repertoires

The term “meme” was coined by Richard Dawkins (1976) as a cultural parallel to genes. According to his conception, a meme is a cultural unit that is spread from one person to another through copying and imitation. Recently, the term has been adopted to mark the more specific phenomenon of Internet memes: groups of digital items sharing common characteristics, created with awareness of each other ( Shifman, 2013 ). An Internet meme is thus comprised of multiple related instances; its creators take an item (text, image, or video) and change parts of it to input their own ideas, while keeping a consistent resemblance to the memetic group ( Milner, 2016 ; Wiggins & Bowers, 2014 ).

This dynamic locates Internet memes between individual and collective creation. Memetic templates are essentially collective, as they are formulated among members of communities or groups with common cultural knowledge and affinities ( Burgess, 2008 ). In fact, the ability to understand a meme instance often requires knowledge of cultural conventions, and those who do not follow its template in a satisfactory manner are likely to be ignored or punished ( Miltner, 2014 ; Nissenbaum & Shifman, 2017 ). Yet, individual input is required to create different instances of a meme and authors use the memetic template to express personal experiences or identities ( Phillips & Milner, 2017 ). In short, memes allow the individual to use a collectively created template to deliver a personalized message.

Drawing on the aforementioned literature and the collective/individual interdependence it describes, we argue that Internet memes ultimately present a limited range of expressive options at any given time and place. Although the memetic sphere is continuously evolving and changing so that memes can be applied to communicate a diverse array of ideas, being template-based, they are still limited and thus limit those using them. In this sense, we suggest viewing Internet memes as an expressive repertoire , which is collectively authored and developed as a means of communication. In a broad metaphorical sense, Internet memes are akin to De Saussure’s (1959) foundational structural ideas concerning language. Meme templates can be seen as a parallel to langue ; socially constructed and systematic, they create a binding structure for expression, while directing its range of possibilities. Meme instances —specific items created and shared on the web—are thus the parole , an individual expression of a personal message that relies on social constructs and their structures. Building on this idea, our comparative analysis of memetic templates aims to reveal such repertoires and the cultural choices and power relations that compose them.

While memetic culture’s historical foundations are by and large American or Western ( Milner, 2016 ), this phenomenon has now reached many other parts of the globe and its impact has been studied in countries as far flung as China, Chile, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Kenya ( Ekdale & Tully, 2013 ; Miller et al., 2016 ; Mina, 2014 ; Pearce, 2015 ). Memes can thus be analyzed as potential agents in processes of globalization. A simple account of this contested concept would depict globalization as “transplanetary process(es) involving increasing liquidity and growing multi-directional flows as well as the structures they encounter and create” ( Ritzer, 2011 , p. 2). At the same time, however, globalization is marked by inequality and favors the dominant and powerful West ( Pieterse, 2009 ). In the cultural sphere, the notion of globalization has been challenged by concepts such as “glocalization,” which argues that the global does not replace the local but rather interacts and intertwines with it ( Robertson, 1995 ). These cross-national flows and ensuing interconnections have been enhanced in the digital era, which facilitates new forms of user generated globalization and localization ( Boxman-Shabtai & Shifman, 2016 ).

Thus far, studies on memes’ global attributes and dynamics have been limited to specific locations and have not taken on the fully comparative view needed to investigate their dynamic at a global level. The nearest parallels are cross-cultural studies about jokes ( Davies, 1990 ; Shifman, Levy, & Thelwall, 2014 ), but these refer only to verbal content and exclude the multimodality prevalent in current digital spheres. The implementation of such an analysis requires specific traceable components that align with those typifying memetic spread: form, content, and stance ( Shifman, 2013 ). While form is fairly simple to assess, content and stance are broader and thus required a more concrete formulation. As detailed below, we used two categories as our analytical focuses: social identities and emotional expression.

Memes and social identities

Representation of social identities has been widely discussed as a pivotal aspect of cultural products. Studies have shown that non-dominant groups (such as women and ethnic or sexual minorities) are commonly under-represented, marginalized, or presented through narrow stereotypes in popular culture ( Gross, 2002 ; Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015 ). These hegemonic patterns of representation persist throughout various media, cultures, and eras.

Despite the early expectation from digital culture, multiple studies demonstrated the marginalization of women and ethnic minorities in these spheres ( Herring, 2003 ; Marwick, 2013 ; Nakamura, 2013 ). While spaces that constitute an alternative to this conservative regime are available and are often celebrated, dominant groups still keep their positions in the mainstream of digital culture. Internet memes are an interesting venue in which to explore these issues, since the ways people consume and produce memes often reflect how they relate to categories such as race, gender and class ( Miltner, 2014 ; Phillips & Milner, 2017 ), and have been found to take part in the construction of such identities ( Frazer & Carlson, 2017 ). Studies of memes in English have detected patterns similar to those shown in the aforementioned studies of traditional and digital media. Milner (2016) noted that the principal population behind the creation and dissemination of Internet memes are young, Caucasian, middle-class men, a tendency that has been reaffirmed quantitatively by Segev et al. (2015) .

This study aims to broaden our understanding of the ways in which social categories are constructed by Internet memes in two senses. First, while previous studies observed primarily Western cultural products, the question of representation has not been answered in regard to memes in other cultures. Second, by focusing on meme templates we aimed to look not only at issues that relate to representation (content) but also at questions pertaining to the positions (stances) invoked when portraying certain identities. The intersection between our analysis of representation and position is also tied to the fundamental tension between individualism and collectivism in meme creation, and we ask which representations allow individual identification and which portray groups as the collective “other.”

Memes and the expression of emotion

Emotions are central to the operation of memes. As Milner (2016) noted, part of what makes a meme propagate is its ability to resonate with individuals on both the personal and societal levels. Similarly, Miltner (2014) claimed that participants perform emotion through memetic formats and use them to add context to their messages, especially when the content is negative or difficult. In addition to memes being emotional conduits for individuals, their communal expression impacts collectives. Civic participation in digital culture often revolves around “affective publics” ( Papacharissi, 2015 ) who engage in societal affairs through emotional involvement. Emotional properties of memes are, therefore, meaningful for both individuals and for collectives, as they facilitate communal arenas of affect-based discourse.

When examined in a global context, this individual/collective co-construction of emotions in memes may be analyzed against broader bodies of cross-cultural literature, in particular studies exploring the individualistic and collectivistic values underscoring nations (e.g., Hofstede, 2001 ). Focusing on the expression of emotions, it was found that individualistic cultures were more emotionally expressive and more positive in their emotions ( Matsumoto et al., 2008 ). However, this prominent research trajectory has been contested. Ascribing values to entire nations or groups of nations (such as “Eastern” vs. “Western”) has been criticized as overly inclusive and reductive ( McSweeney, 2002 ; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002 ). Our study takes a middle ground approach toward this body of work: on the one hand, comparative studies about culture-based values aided us in our case selection; on the other hand, taking the aforementioned criticisms into account, we used these studies as a general starting point for our detailed (and open-minded) exploration of texts.

Another axis underlying the analysis of emotions in memes relates to the differentiation between mainstream and subcultural digital spheres, which can be associated with positive and negative emotions respectively. Since memes are propagated on various forms of social media, they have become integral parts of the “culture of connectivity” ( van Dijck, 2013 ). The mainstream trend of posting to platforms like Facebook and Instagram has an underlying bias (nurtured by business models) toward making and maintaining connections and thus usually reflects positivity and success or calls for warmth and empathy ( Leung, 2009 ; van Dijck & Poell, 2013 ). Of course, this does not mean that all user-generated content is emotionally positive; the mainstream and common norms may have a positive bias, but many examples of negativity are available. Internet memes and the communities that devised much of the logic governing current meme use are themselves such an example. As Milner (2016) discovered, memes often deal with social success and failure. In this, they follow the “logic of lulz,” which exonerates any form of negativity as long as it is entertaining ( Milner, 2013 ). Phillips (2015) associated meme creation with subcultures devoted to trolling and harassment, in which causing grief is a goal, while we have previously demonstrated that memes are often a source of contention and argument within such subcultures ( Nissenbaum & Shifman, 2017 ). It should be noted, however, that these subcultural roots of memetic culture, although fundamental in the inception of memes and still influential, are not necessarily the face of meme use as a whole. As memes gain wider audiences, they are transformed in an attempt to appeal to the general population and may shed some, or all, of their original context ( Literat & van den Berg, 2017 ; Milner, 2016 ).

These notions about emotions and affect inform our examination of cross-cultural memes in two ways, corresponding with the dualities that guide our analysis. First, with regards to the content/stance duality, we look into both the representation of emotions and the stances taken towards them, in light of the literature on mainstream and subcultural digital spheres. Second, we examine the intersection between individualism and collectivism in emotional expression, particularly how emotions in memes relate to private/public spheres.

By combining the aforementioned bodies of literature, we sought to address three questions: (a) what are the main forms incorporated in mainstreamed meme templates and to what extent do they vary culturally?, (b) which types of gender and ethnic identities are represented in mainstreamed meme templates around the world and which stances are meme creators invited to take toward them?, and (c) which emotions are represented in mainstreamed meme templates around the world and which stances are meme creators invited to take toward them?

Sites of analysis

In order to discuss local cultures and their global aspects, we compared Internet meme templates in four languages: English, Chinese, Spanish, and German. These languages were chosen since they are among the most popular languages online 1 and represent diverse cultures. An additional aspect of these languages is their association with ostensibly individualistic and collectivistic cultures. When observing the countries with the largest population of web users for each language, English (US) and German (Germany) were reported as linked with individualistic cultures, while Spanish (Mexico) and Chinese (China) were associated mainly with collectivistic ones ( Hofstede, 2001 ; Matsumoto et al., 2008 ). 2 The parallel of language to culture is, of course, limited and overly inclusive, but it was made while considering the users’ perspective. Since most users do not and cannot differentiate between the geopolitical origins of web content ( Rogers, 2013 ), language becomes an obvious anchor for content consumption and thus constructs borders between audiences. While this approach is probably the most feasible for cross-cultural studies of digital content, it limits our ability to draw conclusions about specific cultures, as discussed in the concluding section.

We focused on a specific format—image macros—for the discussion of Internet memes. Image macros were chosen due to their simple, accessible, and concrete templates, which consist of a repeating image overlaid with text and usually deal with a specific topic or situation. Moreover, many studies on memes have used image macros as primary examples (see Milner, 2016 ; Miltner, 2014 ; Wiggins & Bowers, 2014 ), and thus, while focusing on this format may not encompass the full extent of meme types, it is central enough to constitute a representational basis for an exploratory study of this field.

In order to gather a corpus representing these languages and their relevant image macros, we looked at a confined and mainstreamed space for meme creation: meme generators. These are websites or applications that facilitate user-friendly mechanisms for the creation of image macros by overlaying text on an uploaded image, offering a selection of featured meme templates that appear in the forefront of the interface. While they do not cover the full extent of memetic expressions, meme generators’ approachability makes them an influential curator of creativity in a largely decentralized field, and, as such, they constitute a highly suitable arena for outlining central components of a memetic repertoire ( Wen et al., 2015 ).

The study was facilitated by a team comprised of undergraduate and graduate students who are both native speakers of the studied languages and versed in local meme cultures. 3 By using systematic Google searches and Alexa’s ranking index, they identified the two most popular meme generator websites for each language (except in the case of Chinese, for which one major generator was found). We then used internal metrics from the generators (mainly the number of uses and views) to locate the 100 most popular meme templates in each of the four languages ( n = 400). These templates were the basic units of analysis, but in order to understand what a template includes, we sampled 10 random examples for each one. The rationale for random sampling of meme instances was connected to our aim to look at the overarching patterns shared by most users of these popular templates. Accordingly, the coding process was based on the 10 sampled examples but only counted features that appeared in seven or more. For a template to be coded as expressing sadness, for example, at least seven of its examples had to exhibit the emotion.

The 300 non-English templates (10 for examples each) were translated and annotated by the research assistants before further coding. Altogether, 3,000 meme instances were translated as part of this project—an effort necessary for the comparative, qualitative analysis depicted below. The translators were instructed to convey the meaning in each example as fully as possible, including extensive notes explaining contexts or allusions.

Coding and analysis

Quantitative content analysis.

Using the literature mentioned above, as well as an initial qualitative evaluation of the corpora, we traced three domains across the 400 templates: form, social identities, and emotional expression. Analysis of identities focused on gender and ethnicity, realms that are key to works on representation in digital spheres ( Herring, 2003 ; Nakamura, 2013 ). With regards to emotions, our initial categories were based on literature about basic, globally-recognized emotions ( Ekman, 1992 ; Johnson-Laird & Oatley, 1989 ). An initial review of the corpus, alongside preliminary inter-coder reliability tests, indicated that three of the emotions identified in the literature—anger, sadness, and happiness—are the most pertinent and can be detected and measured in texts. We therefore decided to focus on these three emotions. In order to operationalize them within our codebook, we included general definitions based on analyses of basic emotions, their compositions, and the vocabulary used to describe them ( Turner, 2007 ). For instance, anger was defined in our codebook as “a strong feeling of displeasure or belligerence aroused by a wrong or an offense (…) expressed in an external and extroverted way,” along with pertinent examples for possible anger invoking cues. Coders were instructed to regard any relevant aspect, i.e., the emotions that may be ascribed to the meme creator and/or to characters within the meme.

This quantitative analysis was performed on the memes in their original languages by the team of research assistants. Since all memes were translated to English, all members of the team were able to discuss the work with the principal investigators. The coders used a codebook in English, and the categories were revised by the whole team in order to clarify the values for variables such as “ethnicity” and “gender.” To ensure that the codebook was culturally sensitive, inter-coder reliability tests were performed separately for each language. We thus ensured that coding for Latino or Caucasian ethnicities, for example, was robust and sensitive to emic perceptions of these identities, in accordance to what we might expect from those consuming such memes. Additionally, coders were instructed to focus only on what was explicitly exhibited by the content; when emotions or identities were liminal or unclear, they were not considered.

The development of categories included several pilot reliability tests (with two coders per language), during which the codebook was modified several times. The coding aimed to detect the repeating features of each template (as described above). In order to test the reliability of our codebook, inter-coder reliability scores were calculated for 30 memes in each language ( n = 120), based on the work of two native speaker coders for each language. The agreement rate was measured using Krippendorff’s test, with variable scores ranging from 1 to the cutoff point at .66, as recommended by Krippendorff (2004) for exploratory studies. To further ensure the validity of this process, the coding of the whole corpus by the main coder was reevaluated by a second coder (a culturally literate native speaker), and any conflicts were reviewed and resolved by the team to ensure a highly sensitive process.

Qualitative analysis

Based on the findings of the quantitative analysis, we went on to conduct a qualitative analysis on the dimensions of form, social categories, and emotions. The analysis was performed by the principal investigators with the assistance of culturally literate research assistants in each language, who were consulted to ensure clarity and to validate and comment on the main interpretations. While the quantitative analysis enabled us to address questions related to content ( who is represented in meme templates and which emotions appear in them), the qualitative analysis allowed us to analyse the stance that meme creators are invited to take on identities and emotions. The detection of these various positions entailed by memes followed the principles of the grounded theory approach ( Strauss & Corbin, 1998 ), according to which categories emerge from the data itself in a process of constant comparison. However, due to recent modifications of this approach ( Kelle, 2007 ), the interpretative process also considered the aforementioned literature on social identities, emotions, and cultural values. This literature led us to analyze both social identities and emotions according to categories emerging from our corpus. For the former, this included tracing the roles ascribed to particular groups, including the reliance on stereotypes and the differentiation between the identities of those observing through memes and of those who are being observed through them. For the latter, two dimensions relating to emotions emerged: their aim (namely, whether the emotions are directed toward the self, the other, or the collective) and their discursive function (namely, the role they may play in conversation).

Our findings are divided into three parts: form-related and visual aspects of the memes; their participation and representation patterns; and the emotion-related features of memetic repertoires.

While all meme generators were based on image macros—a repeating image annotated by users—some languages were found to be closer to each other in their memetic formats, as exemplified by Figure 1 . The English sample shared about half of its templates with both German and Spanish (49 and 42 respectively), while German and Spanish shared 36 templates. A further qualitative analysis, however, revealed that much of the German templates drew on U.S. culture and none had obvious sources in German culture; many individual instances refer to German issues or situations, but the collectively authored templates remain either nondescript or with roots in American culture. In contrast, almost one fifth of the Spanish templates originated in Hispanic-American content, mostly from Mexican television shows. In other cases, American sources were incorporated into memes that are unique to the Spanish sample. For example, Kermit the Frog, who appears in a few English memes, has a much wider use in Spanish with distinct versions that are not common elsewhere. Thus, both the German and Spanish samples appear to draw a substantial amount of the material forming their meme templates from the United States. This includes both reliance on pop culture and on memetic culture. However, tracing the use of ostensibly U.S.-based templates revealed that they were nevertheless ascribed with local meaning. For example, the “First World Problems” meme in English, which expresses the petty complaints of the privileged, looks exactly the same in Spanish, but the latter version is referred to as just “Problems” and loses the connotation of pettiness or privilege, retaining a more general discussion of annoyances.

Similarities and differences in meme templates.

The Chinese sample stood out in terms of its formats; only one of the templates (featuring Barack Obama) had parallels in other languages. Moreover, though Chinese memes maintained the basic dynamic of a changing text over a fixed image, their style was notably different. Other languages base their meme templates mostly on photographic images or drawings, but Chinese memes were mostly based on simplified cartoons supplemented with photographic facial features of well-known celebrities, primarily from East Asian cultures, captured in highly expressive moments. The results thus suggest the existence of a barrier (or, perhaps, firewall) between China and the other countries with regards to the shape that memes take. However, more similarities became evident when we examined the types of social identities represented.

Social identities

The analysis of social identities presented in meme templates portraying humans (i.e., excluding templates featuring only objects or animals) revealed a homogenous pattern; most of the content across all samples incorporated a hegemonic participation structure, giving prominence to groups that are considered dominant. Consequently, findings previously reported in the context of the English-speaking world ( Milner, 2016 ; Segev et al., 2015 ) were established as applying to other linguistic settings as well. In terms of memetic content, all of the samples featured mostly men (86% overall). There was little variance, with women appearing in 17%, 19%, and 21% of meme templates in Chinese, English, and Spanish respectively and in only 9% of German templates. A similar pattern was found with regards to ethnicity: most meme templates in the English (76%) and German (73%) samples featured only Caucasians; likewise, in the Chinese sample, 78% showed only Asian ethnicity. The Spanish sample alone showed some variety with 25% Latin or Hispanic characters but nevertheless featuring Caucasians more frequently (48%). While these results are limited as they are based only on the visually clear representation of gender and ethnicity, they coincide with what casual meme makers and consumers see, namely, an overt orientation toward the dominant groups.

Our analysis of the representation of social groups also revealed the stance evident in these templates: meme templates across the world consistently define women and ethnic minorities as “others” and cast them mostly within the realm of stereotypes ascribed to their identities (see Figure 2 ), as documented in other contexts ( Nakamura, 2013 ). For women, this means being portrayed as overly sensitive, emotional, or romantically desirable/undesirable. The “First World Problems” template, for example, features a woman crying over trivial matters such as not getting enough Likes on Facebook. The Chinese meme “I’ll Save My Light for You” depicts a woman who is deemed unattractive as dating or having been with the addressee as a way of mocking him. Ethnic minorities are mostly represented using framings of poverty or aggressiveness. For example, “Provincial Man” is a man of color professing his very modest (and cheap) way of living, while “Pulp Fiction” draws on the violent African American character from the eponymous movie to express threats or aggression.

Gender and ethnicity stereotypes.

In contrast, the portrayal of majority-group males spans a wide range of positions, expressions, and roles across all languages: they can be lowlifes (“Scumbag Steve”) or heroes (“One Does Not Simply”), introverts with social difficulties (“Bad Luck Brian”) or cynical and arrogant (“Condescending Wonka”). As with other cultural forms such as movies, whiteness and masculinity are constructed as transparent ( Dyer, 1988 ); identity categories in meme templates are not explicit issues when it comes to majority groups, unlike minority identities which are often defined by their affiliation to these categories. The stance emerging from this pattern of identity representation defines the dominant group as “us” or even “me”; individuals are invited to voice their own emotions and concerns through templates featuring white males. Minority groups, on the other hand, are usually portrayed as collectives that are emotionally removed from the posting individual; they are featured as “they,” namely, those who meme creators describe or comment on rather than identify with. Social identity representation in global memetic culture is therefore one of standardization and orthodoxy, favoring stereotypical representations of marginalized groups while portraying ethnically dominant males as the standard bearers.

Emotional expression

As detailed above, three basic emotions—anger, sadness, and happiness—were traced in all four samples. In the memetic content of the corpus as a whole, anger was the most common emotion (17%), followed by happiness (13%) and sadness (9%), thus presenting an overall negative skew. These three emotions appeared in 39% of the corpus; the rest of the templates either did not clearly express emotion or contained emotions beyond those we were focusing on. The English sample exhibited a relatively balanced range of emotions, with anger only slightly higher (41%) than sadness and happiness (29% and 30% respectively). In German, the balance seemed to be between happiness (43%) and anger (38%) with sadness less present (19%). The Spanish sample was more skewed, with the highest rate of happiness (52%) and the lowest rates for both sadness (15%) and anger (33%). The Chinese sample, on the other hand, included almost no happy meme templates (6%), the highest rate of anger (67%), and 27% featuring sadness. The dependency between language and emotions was statistically significant (χ 2 = 18.75, df = 6, p -value = .0046). A post hoc pairwise test showed that only Chinese is distinctively different from the other languages with regards to the distribution of emotions (adjusted p values: Chinese vs. English = .022; Chinese vs. Spanish = .0016; Chinese vs. German = .0031, Fisher’s exact test corrected for multiple testing using FDR). This distinctiveness mirrors the split depicted above between the Chinese memetic sphere and the others. However, as detailed below, more similarities were found when each emotion was further analyzed.

In order to shed light on the quantitative findings, we conducted a qualitative analysis in which we assessed both the targets of these emotions and the stance taken toward them. We found that emotions were expressed through consistent frames across the corpora with some variance. As detailed below, anger was expressed directly, while happiness and sadness were mostly expressed in a mitigated, sometimes even ironic, manner.

Meme templates expressing anger were notably plain and direct, demonstrating exaggeratedly aggressive reactions to people, situations, and issues. While this directness was shared across samples, we found cultural differences in its aim (i.e., at whom the anger is directed), which ranged from self-directed to societal. As demonstrated in Figure 3 , Spanish is the only language in which anger was aimed at the self, i.e., the author’s own actions, circumstances, or unmet expectations. Nevertheless, angry memes in Spanish, as well as in German and Chinese, were primarily interpersonal, that is, they express ire toward a specific recipient and are written in the second person. In Chinese, this focus on the interpersonal came with an avoidance of the social issues that were found in the other samples. While many forms of political discussion are censored on the Chinese web ( Mina, 2014 ), even the more palatable possibilities of angrily discussing public life, such as commenting on annoying trends or referencing stereotypes, were almost totally absent from the Chinese sample. In contrast, the English sample was exceptional in its refrain from expressions of interpersonal anger, directing anger mostly at broad social/political issues and groups.

Differing aims of anger.

Figure 3 illustrates these differing manifestations of anger in Chinese and American memes. The Chinese meme positions the faces of two well-known East Asian celebrities (common in other templates as well) on cartoonish bodies, as the character with a serious expression strikes the laughing character with enough force to push him forward. The caption seems to come from the hitter, who takes a position of authority (“have I allowed you”) and criticizes the behavior of the victim (pretending “to be cool”). Thus, the template directs users to apply it within a clear, interpersonal dynamic: anger in such a situation requires two specific people to take the different roles depicted. More broadly, the accusation of pretending to be cool, successful, or desirable is common in the Chinese memes, but despite this frequency, it is never made in reference to generalized or collective crowds, only specific individuals. A contrasting stance toward anger can be found in the English example, which is aimed at criticizing society in general. The text’s familiar criticism of over-sensitivity and/or political correctness is overtly aimed not at a person (as is common in the Chinese memes) but at a collective type of behavior ascribed to “people” in general. In this case (and others) the template itself does not require social commentary, and indeed, templates aimed at society in English are at times used interpersonally in other languages.

Memetic templates expressing sadness were less direct than those expressing anger, focusing on minor examples or even ridiculing overemotional responses. They displayed three overarching modes (see Figure 4 ): (a) pathetic loss , in which sadness is felt over minor, trivial, or mundane inconveniences (e.g., in “Crying Peter Parker” sadness is associated with a minor gaming experience), (b) sarcastic pity , in which sadness is used to berate others by portraying pity over their failures or deficiencies (e.g., in “Please Guy”, as detailed below), and (c) earnest fail , in which memes depict social embarrassment or failure. These cases are the most direct examples of sadness and usually describe the author’s own experiences (e.g., in “Baby Feeling Sad” sadness is caused by an unsuccessful romantic experience).

Modes of sadness expressions.

When examining the expression of sadness cross-linguistically, some distinctions emerged. Chinese offered the prime examples in which sadness was displayed directly and toward the self (similar to the expression of anger in Spanish); the emotion was presented in an unmitigated fashion and toward realistically sad situations which were seldom presented elsewhere. In all other samples, sadness was generally expressed in a mitigated way, but there were differences in the extent to which the emotion was distanced. While Spanish did include some examples of direct emoting, in both English and German sadness was most often detached from the authors and their own sentiments, usually through the sarcastic expression of sadness which was actually used to mock the others. The German example in Figure 4 (“Please Guy”) illustrates this distancing stance. The image used in the meme seems earnest and elicits sadness quite straightforwardly. The same can be said for the first part of the text, a cliché raising the expectation of encouragement for emotional hardship. However, this is clearly inversed by the second part of the text, which epitomizes the German expression Schadenfreude , self-satisfaction derived by witnessing the misfortune of another. Thus, while seemingly approaching an actual acknowledgement of sadness, the meme steers toward a cynical stance, framing the option of personal expression of this emotion as unwanted or illegitimate.

Like sadness, meme templates expressed happiness in moderated ways, and the emotion was rarely realized fully or unequivocally. The three main types of happiness presented in the templates (see Figure 5 ) somewhat resemble those regarding sadness. As with pathetic loss , the category of little victories turns happy moments into ludicrous interactions by presenting them as too small or unworthy. Templates portray joy over bad situations that turn out better than expected, or trivial success stories, like the “Van Damme” character’s joy over something as prosaic as hearing a favorite song. A second type of happy meme templates emerges from gloating mockery —similarly to sarcastic pity , memes depicting enjoyment over the misfortune or inadequacies of others. A third form of happiness can be seen in templates featuring oblivious happiness , in which the character’s happiness stems from their ignorance of their own pathetic status, as in “10 Guy” who presents a smiling demeanor while offering stories of extreme foolishness or detachment from reality. It should be noted that while anger was expressed in a direct manner and sadness had some instances of earnest feeling, happiness was almost never depicted in full and remained diminished by circumstances and context. This does not mean that none of the memetic templates in the corpus were used to display actual happiness, but these instances were few and far between, further establishing the negative skew of memetic emotional expression.

Modes of happiness expression.

A cross-linguistic comparison echoed our findings about sadness, as happiness was similarly distanced from the authors in most, but not all, cases. In Spanish, while most meme templates were used to convey ironic happiness, we did find some examples that expressed happiness directly, mixed with self-embellishment and bravado. Several memes were also used to create what we dub “discursive gifts”—blessings, congratulations, or wishes delivered like greeting cards, usually ignoring the template’s conventional use. German and English meme templates did not have parallels to “discursive gift” forms, and their invoking of happiness was consistently ironic. English memes tended to use ironic happy framings also as sarcastic commentary on social behaviors, displaying encouragement toward what they consider positive behavior, while implying that most people act differently. One such meme instance uses the “Congratulations” template seen in Figure 5 that reads: “To all my bretheren who don’t give a f**k about football.” Thus, Leonardo DiCaprio’s smiling face conveys happiness, while the text infers that there are at least some who do not participate in a social trend (such as football) deemed annoying or unintelligent. The phrasing of the message inserts a complaint into the expression of happiness, thus condemning society at large, save for a selected few.

This article presented a cross-lingual study of Internet memes in order to trace global and local expressive repertoires. Our analysis yielded a complex web of unique and shared dimensions, demonstrating the glocal positioning of memes as discursive repertoires that facilitate certain kinds of expressions. By way of conclusion, we present three overarching suppositions about the cross-cultural use of Internet memes as revealed in our analysis.

First, memes templates constantly alternate their bottom-up and top-down articulation. Like other forms of user-generated content, Internet memes are often bottom-up cultural creations, moving from individuals to wider crowds. However, once memes achieve a certain level of popularity and become part of meme generators, they transform into top-down repertoires in two senses. They first dictate certain expressive uses, for example, the unwritten rule spread across all samples is that happiness should be expressed in an ironic way. In addition, these top-down templates echo the process of banal Americanization ( Shifman et al., 2014 ) in a mitigated way: while meme templates are dominated by the spread of American meme and pop culture, these references are often used merely as wallpapers, backgrounds for local happenings. Those local settings determine the more meaningful content and stance dimensions that meme templates convey. Moreover, we found that Chinese memes are not based on these global/American templates but rather use local resources almost exclusively.

Second, we found that mainstreamed meme templates are representationally conservative yet emotionally disruptive. Memes in all four languages maintained hegemonic patterns where men and members of dominant ethnicities are forefronted while women and ethnic minorities are marginalized. This conservative tendency was built through an alignment of content and stance: the latter groups were not only presented in low percentages, their stereotypical representation also positioned them as “others,” summoning distanced and dismissive stances toward them. Since these templates are the most mainstreamed forms of memes, available to anyone who wants to create a meme without specific knowledge of the subculture, this narrow repertoire of templates may severely limit ways of talking (and thinking) about identity.

At the same time, meme templates are emotionally disruptive. Here too, the disruptive tendency was built through an alignment of content and stance: not only do meme templates represent more negative than positive emotions, but the negative emotion of anger is consistently framed as a sincere and even required stance, while the positive emotion of happiness is diminished and mocked. The pivotal role of anger in templates across the globe is intriguing, given the literature about the complex attitudes toward this emotion in many societies. In America, for example, there is a long history of treating anger as a disruptive force that must be controlled in order to ensure stability, particularly in the context of a service-oriented and customer-pleasing culture ( Stearns, 1987 ). As detailed above, meme cultures allow for the expression of anger and other disruptive emotions, in contrast to the norms of support and positivity found in many social media platforms. Here we have demonstrated that mainstreamed meme templates follow the route paved by their subculture predecessors.

Finally, our analysis led to the identification of what we have labeled the individualism–collectivism puzzle . An integrative evaluation demonstrated that emotions were ascribed to the personal or public arenas in a way that contradicts individualistic or collectivistic cultural tendencies as reported in the existing literature. As mentioned above, collectivistic values have been ascribed to Chinese (China) and Spanish (Mexico) speakers, and individualistic values were ascribed to English (United States) and German (Germany) speakers ( Matsumoto et al., 2008 ). However, the memetic repertoire of these countries does not seem to conform to those alleged tendencies. The emotional expression of German and English memes was doubly distanced from the individual: first, since the internal emotions of happiness and sadness are distanced through cynicism, and second, since the memes focus on the public sphere or on stereotypical characters that are removed from the author. Conversely, there appeared to be a double embracing of individual emotionality in Chinese and Spanish meme templates: first, in the availability of templates conveying sincere expressions of sadness (Chinese) and happiness (Spanish), and second, in the prominence of templates in which emotions are self- rather than other-directed (anger in Spanish and sadness in Chinese).

The apparent contradiction between individualism and collectivism found in our data in comparison to previous studies creates an interpretative puzzle which may be explained in three completely different ways. First, if we embrace the aforementioned existing literature on individualism and collectivism, what we see here can be regarded as a certain individualistic–collectivistic barter. In other words, memes tend to compensate for forms of expression that may be missing in other contexts. However, an alternative framing might suggest that our results challenge the generalizations found in the literature and call for other ways to measure values, particularly in digital spheres. While most existing value studies are based on self-reports, studying expressive artifacts such as memes may lead to new understandings of values. Finally, some of our findings may be ascribed to external circumstances. In the case of China, for example, it is reasonable to assume that the strict avoidance of any public issue in memetic templates also relates to the regime’s censorship of political content.

Limitations and future research

While our findings shed light on the workings of globalization and localization in meme-oriented spheres, they are limited in several ways. First, since our analysis relied on language differences as proxies to culture, we were not able to indicate specific dynamics relating to local contexts and identities. Thus, we cannot make any claims about Chinese or German Internet users as a whole, nor can we capture nuanced subcultural trends within these vast groups. Moreover, as detailed above, our findings about these cultures can be interpreted in several ways, and these can only be verified by future research. Another limitation is our focus on popular image-macros and meme generators to establish and compare repertoires. Whereas this concentration is necessary in order to portray the broad picture in such an exploratory foray, it prevents us from accounting for the variation found in the implementation of these templates. In addition, for reasons explained above, we accounted only for three major emotions. Finally, we emphasized the memetic “mainstream,” i.e., popular templates featured in easily accessible formats. Memes are, however, often used in more specific communal contexts that may have different properties from those we have outlined here.

While we believe that the methodological decisions we took were necessary in a study aimed at providing a general overview of an unexplored terrain, we trust that future studies will expand and deepen the scope of this study. This can be done by exploring a larger set of languages, looking into subcultural settings, and uncovering the everyday pragmatics of implementing memetic repertoires. Such studies will hopefully build on the insights generated by this research with regards to the shared and unique expressions of memes across the globe. This project has demonstrated in particular that a comparative analysis of memes’ content, form, and stance may yield nuanced results, revealing a rich map of cross-cultural similarities and differences in the ways emotions and social boundaries are shaped through these communicative forms.

We wish to the editors and reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments on this work. We are also grateful to the wonderful team of coders who took part in this project: Talya Adler, David Bieger, Marc Brueggemann, Daiana Morales-Nomaksteinsky, Andres Nomaksteinsky, Tomer Sheelo, Jian-Yu Shen, and Yingshun Xue.

This study was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF grant no 1670/15).

According to http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm ; http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_language/all (Last accessed December 2017).

Other large Spanish-speaking countries, with the exception of Spain and Argentina, are similarly reported in the literature as associated with collectivism.

The coders came from the countries with the largest population of web users for each language: the United States, China, Mexico, and Germany.

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Accepted by Nicole Kraemer

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INTERNET MEMES AS FORM OF CULTURAL DISCOURSE: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS ON FACEBOOK

2017, Conference Paper

Internet memes are phenomena that rapidly gain popularity on the Internet which construct intercultural discourse. Using visual rhetoric, the Internet memes convey a set of symbols and ideals that express socio-political structure represented on the Internet. The story of memes is crucial in understanding the digital culture along with revealing the identity of an Internet subculture, as well as in analyzing the impacts of this cultural artifact. This study analyzes the nature and functions of internet memes and its contribution to formulate a new cultural discourse. The findings have been instrumented to illustrate how memes operate as rhetoric to explore the intercultural communication and identity construction prevalent in representative cyber-culture. It has specially been targeted to inquire the inter-textual nature of memes which are created and disseminated by the Bangladeshi Facebook prosumers. In addition, the study makes a comparison of theoretical approaches to the study of memes, including visual rhetoric approach which combines elements of the semiotic and discursive approaches to study the persuasive constituents of visual texts. These methods help deconstruct a sign or a text and decode possible hidden meanings through discourse analysis in terms of written texts and through semiotic analysis in terms of images. The presence of both an image (sign) and a caption (text) in an internet meme requires such a combined approach for reflective output.

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The studies selected for publication in this special issue on Critical Visual Theory can be divided into three thematic groups: (1) image making as power making, (2) commodification and recanonization, and (3) approaches to critical visual theory. The approaches to critical visual theory adopted by the authors of this issue may be subsumed under the following headings (3.1) critical visual discourse and visual memes in general and Anonymous visual discourse in particular, (3.2) collective memory and gendered gaze, and (3.3) visual capitalism, global north and south.

Anton Ruliou

The rapid emergence of the participatory internet culture produced new, rarely seen before ways of commenting on political and social issues. While the role of the internet memes is, of course, not strictly limited to that of social commentary, and, in fact, is rarely thought to be so, modern political internet memes at times enter even the mainstream political discussion. User-generated internet memes also often appear in mainstream media. The United States presidential elections were even branded ‘the meme election’ by some political commentators, underlying the importance of the internet memes as a means of political commentary during these elections. At the same time the research on political internet memes remains limited. The internet memes are a product of a modern internet culture. Because of that it is important to discuss the concept of internet culture, its position as a part of culture in general, its key characteristics and its evolution from the supposedly less participatory culture of the early days of the World Wide Web to a more participatory period of Web 2.0. This latter era is characterized by the presence of certain technologies which are also discussed in chapter 1. These technologies allowed more participation and content creation by users, thus effectively being crucial to both creation and dissemination of internet memes. At the same time the visual structure of internet memes is not new. ‘Image macros’ - the most popular type of internet memes represents an image which usually repeats from meme to meme with superimposed text. As such, in order to grasp the meaning of political internet memes, it might be useful to turn to semiotics. I discuss Roland Barthes’ collection of essays Image-Music-Text due to it being particular useful to discussion of images with text. Later I have also analyzed the case study of Rushka Kvadratnyi Vatnik using semiotics to test my hypothesis of political internet memes serving as examples of political caricature and means of reaction to propaganda. Discussion of political internet memes is impossible without the general introduction to the concept of internet memes. In chapter 2 I discuss briefly the history of the concept, the reasons why people choose to produce internet memes, the role of affinity spaces in meme production, and what makes internet meme successful with a particular attention to the role of humor in political internet memes. In that chapter I also discuss the previous research on political internet memes which remains very limited. I also make a particular distinction between internet memes originally created as a form of social or political commentary and internet memes which were originally created for other purposes but may be used as a form of social or political commentary. As a case study I have chosen the case of the internet meme Rushka Kvadratnyi Vatnik which became very popular in the Russian-speaking segment of the internet as form of criticism of Russian jingoist patriotism. I also discuss how certain manifestations of this internet meme are used as a form of a political caricature and as a means of reaction to the official Russian propaganda using semiotic analysis. The source materials I have used throughout the paper are mainly academic research papers on the subject of the Internet, internet culture, and internet memes. I have also used Roland Barthes’ and Umberto Eco’s writings in the sphere of semiotics. Writings on the interrelation of humor, propaganda and politics were also important. Finally, I have used news from reliable mass media to illustrate my points – such sources were mostly used as a means of illustrating the coverage of certain events in the mainstream media.

Mykola Makhortykh

The article discusses interactions between emotions, memory and user-generated digital content in the context of online protest campaigns. Using as a case study anti-government protest in Ukraine (2013-2014) and Venezuela (2019), it compares how pro-and anti-government communities use visuality and memoricity of internet memes to stir affect and promote their political agendas. It shows that despite differences in the use of visual content elements, Ukrainian and Venezuelan memes have similar political functionality. In both countries, pro-government memes usually rely on simple emotional messages for propaganda/ polarization purposes, whereas anti-government memes produce more nuanced statements used as a form of creative criticism/coping mechanism. These political functions are often amplified by memoricity, which is used to stigmatize regime's opponents by pro-government communities and to legitimize protesters' demands by anti-government communities.

Sanya Kumar Aitwani

This paper aims to discuss the growing and dominant online phenomenon – internet meme by doing a bibliographic review of related theoretical and empirical research. This paper presents the review of recent literature (2005-2017) from various journals, magazine articles, and book sections. It also argues for meme literacy to be included in the limited traditional digital literacy definition and considered as an essential locus for cultural, civic and political participation for children and youth.

Explorations in Media Ecology

Bernadette “bird” Bowen, PhD

Since 2016, a culture of participatory leftism has emerged on Facebook that has yet to be substantially documented. Scholars have established ideographic criticism of memes as a critical/cultural tool for analysis. However, there is little to no work on broader, systems-based analyses of alternative social media platforms, and the role they play in the creation and maintenance of political identities. These socially mediated communities, alternatively known as Leftbook (or Left Facebook), advertise themselves as places to learn about Marx, socialism, and philosophies centered on labor, revolution, and worker freedom. Research from traditional online group pages suggest there is a distinct split between neutral observers and harsh critics of Leftbook. According to Karlsson (2017) A growing complaint in the Leftbook space that almost every group…like to joke about throwing people in labor camps. There was a period of 6-7 months where you couldn’t avoid seeing at least one ‘lol you go to gulag’, joke. (para. 7). These online spaces often result in odd, hilarious, and peculiar behaviors that the untrained eye is quick to brush off as meaningless Internet drivel. However, humor and satire have long been used tactfully by counterculture organizations/movements to communicate the absurdity of the status quo. For instance, Waisanen (2009) argued that unlikely sources of comedic rhetorical criticism creatively influences and critically reframes political discourse; guiding audiences toward new possibilities of insight and democratic civil discourse. Using Johnson's (2007) explanations of memetics as a guiding theory, I discuss Burke’s various work on human paradox, identification, Dramatism, and the comic frame to provide insight on notions of: identity performance, “slacktivism”, and burgeoning political resonance within this digital environment. I code preliminary themes of the post content of one Leftbook page, Sassy Socialist Memes, over the course of a month. My guiding research questions are, “As platforms such as Leftbook become environmental, how do they contribute to a mode of socio-political identity construction for members of the Left?” and “As extensions of political identity, how does the Sassy Social Memes page impact experiences of political organizing and engagement?” Given the above questions, media ecology provides important conceptual resources for analysis given its focus on the broader systemic changes introduced by media as they become environmental. Thus, this paper blends insights from both rhetorical criticism, in its study of ideology and identity, with media ecological perspectives concerning media-as-environments. This paper will establish both content and medium characterization of Leftbook, and will make an argument for the importance of studying Leftbook digital spaces to gain further insight into alternative modes of sociopolitical identity construction. This analysis contributes to our understanding of Sassy Socialist Memes, and begins an argument that this digital environment has potential to function as a space of socio-political identity construction for members of the Left. The implications of these findings lean toward a burgeoning resonance of anti-capitalist solidarity, class struggle, and resentment of the late capitalist American two-party system.

Heidi E. Huntington

Visual Communication Quarterly

Natalia Mielczarek

Within hours of its publication online, the “pepper-spraying cop” image from the Occupy Wall Street movement at the University of California–Davis became an Internet meme.The outraged public manipulated key signifiers of the famous picture, creating hundreds of digital derivatives that offered new takes on what happened. With the use of iconographic tracking and visual rhetorical analysis, the study argues that Internet memes are more than silly jokes or social commentary.Through rhetorical transfigurations, they can deliver social justice and launch public shaming campaigns, serving as online instruments to respond to an off-line event.

Débora Antunes

This thesis presents a study of how identification, according to Kenneth Burke's theory, can be observed in the media-related practices promoted by the cyber-activist collective Anonymous. Identification is the capacity of community-building through the use of shared interests. Burke affirms that, as human beings are essentially social, identification is the very aim of any human interaction. Cyber-activism deeply relies on this capacity to promote and legitimise its campaigns. In the case of Anonymous, the collective became extremely popular and is now a frequent presence even in street protests, usually organised online, around the world. Here, I argue that this power was possible through the use of identification, which helped attract a large number of individuals to the collective. Anonymous was particularly skilled in its capacity to create an ideology for each campaign, which worked well to set up a perfect enemy who should be fought against by any people, despite their demographic or social status. Other forms of identification were also present and important. Although it is impossible to measure how many people or what kind of people Anonymous has been attracting, the presence of identification as a strong phenomenon is undeniable, since the collective is now one of the most famous cyber-activist organisations.

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Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 13. Number 4 December 2022                                   Pp. 237-250 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol13no4.15

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A Systematic Literature Review on the Integration of Internet Memes in EFL/ESL Classrooms  

Raja Altukruni English and Translation Department Saudi Electronic University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Email: [email protected]

Received:07/31/2022         Accepted:10/26/2022                 Published: 12/15/2022

Abstract: As memes have become ubiquitous and embedded in the Internet and popular culture, a growing body of literature has investigated incorporating digital humor in the form of Internet memes as a new approach to increase learners’ motivation and engagement. This paper conducts a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to examine the impact of humor and meme-related pedagogical activities on language learning and to provide guidelines for incorporating meme-based learning in language classrooms. It seeks to address the following question: What is the effect of meme-related pedagogical activities in EFL/ESL classrooms? The revealed findings should encourage instructors to adopt this innovative approach to meet the needs and expectations of today’s language learners. The results show that using meme-based learning in language classrooms increases learners’ motivation and interest in the topic; creates a positive, fun, interesting, and engaging learning environment; enhances retention and understanding of new concepts; and simplifies complex concepts and ideas. In light of the review’s findings, the paper suggests practical and instructional implications for implementing memes appropriately and effectively. Keywords : EFL/ESL classrooms, humor, internet memes, systematic literature review

Cite as: Altukruni, R.  (2022). A Systematic Literature Review on the Integration of Internet Memes in EFL/ESL Classrooms. Arab World English Journal, 13 (4) 237-250. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol13no4.15

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Dr. Raja Altukruni is an assistant professor at Saudi Electronic University. She has more than 5 years of experience in teaching EFL in higher education institutions. Her ultimate goal is not only to build theory but also to produce and translate research that is directly relevant to the reality of those who teach and learn English in EFL/ESL contexts. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4726-8138

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