The Discursive Power Of Memes In Digital Culture: Ideology, Semiotics, And Intertextuality

Description

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