scholarly journals MEMEING AGAINST MAINSTREAM. AN ANALYSIS OF DANK MEMES AND THE PICTORIAL (COUNTER-)PRACTICES OF MEME CULTURE

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Pauliks
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Advertising Agencies ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Practice Analysis ◽  
Media Philosophy ◽  
The Media ◽  
Independent Media ◽  
Media Practices

Internet memes are now part of mainstream media culture. On social media, each day memes are created, consumed, and shared by millions of people. Advertising agencies create their own memes to promote brands and products. However, memes are also integral to subcultures on 4chan, Reddit, and Tumblr, where most memes originate from. These subcultures battle the mainstreamization of memes to protect the independent media making practice of memeing from outsiders, who they call ‘normies.’ Their weapon of choice are so-called ‘dank memes,’ which are self-reflexive internet memes that criticize mainstream memes and memeing. This critique is a form of visual vernacular criticism, which is highly understudied, especially in regard to digital metapictures such as dank memes. The question this paper wants to answer is: how are dank memes made and employed to reclaim the independent media making practice of memeing from mainstream and marketing culture? The focus lies on specific pictorial practices that counteract the popularization and commercialization of internet memes. To explore these counter-practices, the paper proposes a methodology that combines media philosophy with practice theory to stress that digital metapictures themselves such as dank memes hold knowledge about the media practices that mainstream memes are made of, and about how to counteract them. To explore this media knowledge, examples of the meta-meme $2 are closely examined in the context of the subreddit r/dankmemes. The conducted picture practice analysis suggests that dank memes oppose image macros, while being criticized themselves as mere shibboleths to meme culture.

scholarly journals Media społecznościowe w rękach młodych ludzi

1970 ◽  
pp. 247-262
Author(s):  
Ewelina Konieczna
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Media Change ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Practices ◽  
Vital Resource

Popular media culture has been a vital resource through which youth generations have defined themselves, their desires, and their hopes and dreams. This continues to be reflected in the dynamic ways that the youth are using digital media to shape their everyday lives. As a result, young people are constantly creative; they acquire new skills and make up groups and communities in the media culture. The purpose of the reflections in the article is a look at the media practices of young people and an attempt to find an answer to the question how the young generation uses social media for communication and participation in culture and how social media change media culture.

scholarly journals Media, Culture and Indigenous Languages in Pakistan: A Critical Review

2020 ◽  
Vol V (IV) ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
Irem Sultana ◽  
Malik Adnan ◽  
Muhammad Imran Mehsud
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Study Results ◽  
The Media ◽  
Depth Interviews

This research paper inspected the role of Pakistani media to protect indigenous languages and culture in Pakistan. The study examined the situation; if Pakistani media outpours concern with the native languages or not. The article also checked the media landscape, its language-wise segregation and scenario of literacy in different areas of the country. The outcomes of the study showed that Pakistani media is neglecting the indigenous languages. The study results exhibited clearly that media houses’ focus on protecting native languages, is not profound. The findings also showed that foreign ownership of Media houses plays a role in neglecting indigenous language promotions. The current study presented that Pakistani mainstream media is damaging the local and native languages. The study was the outcome of qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews of senior communication experts.

scholarly journals Medieøkologien i SKAM

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-66
Author(s):  
Ruth Grüters ◽  
Knut Ove Eliassen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
The Media ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Media Practices

AbstractTo understand the success of SKAM, the series’ innovative use of “social media” must be taken into consideration. The article follows two lines of argument, one diachronic, the other synchronic. The concept of remediation allows for a historical perspective that places the series in a longer tradition of “real time”-fictions and media practices that span from the epistolary novels of the 18th century by way of radio theatre and television serials to the new media of the 21st century. Framing the series within the current media ecology (marked by the connectivity logic of “social media”), the authors analyze how the choice of the blog as the drama’s media platform has formed the ways the series succeeded in affecting and mobilizing its audience. Given the long tradition of strong pedagogical premises in the teenager serials of publicly financed Norwegian television, the authors note the absence of any explicit media critical perspectives or didacticism. Nevertheless, the claim is that the media-practices of the series, as well as the actions and discourses of its followers (blogposts, facebook-groups, etc.), generate new insights and knowledge with regards to the series’ form, content, and practices.

scholarly journals Grendizer Leaves for Sweden

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-71
Author(s):  
Omar Al-Ghazzi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Generational Identity ◽  
Media Globalization ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis ◽  
Media Practices

Abstract Exploring the post-March 2011 Syrian online sphere, in this article I focus on nostalgic videos and memes inspired by Arabic-dubbed Japanese anime series originally broadcast on Arab government TV stations in the 1980s. As part of a dissident social media culture, amateur videos that redubbed and edited childhood cartoons have appeared on YouTube since 2011—tackling themes of revolution, war and exile. These videos defied and mocked the Al-Assad regime, as well as the Islamic State. I argue that they are to be understood as empowering media practices for how they project political meaning onto childhood cartoons which are associated with a generational identity shared by now-adult Syrians. Highlighting an understudied aspect of media globalization—the influence of Japanese anime on Arab popular culture—in this article I examine a diverse body of social media clips and memes that recycle Japanese anime. I analyze their re-appropriation by Syrians, by offering a typology of nostalgic online practices in the contexts of war and the uprising. These can be summed up in three categories of nostalgic mediation: nostalgic defiance, as expressed in calls for political action; nostalgic mockery, as reflected in subversive nostalgic humor targeting authority; and nostalgic anguish, in reaction to the trauma of war and exile, for example, in relation to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Young adults know that their issues are not represented in the news: Israeli young adults and mainstream news media

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Nuriely ◽  
Moti Gigi ◽  
Yuval Gozansky
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the ways socio-economic issues are represented in mainstream news media and how it is consumed, understood and interpreted by Israeli young adults (YAs). It examines how mainstream media uses neo-liberal discourse, and the ways YAs internalize this ethic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome its limitations. Design/methodology/approach This was a mixed methods study. First, it undertook content analysis of the most popular Israeli mainstream news media among YAs: the online news site Ynet and the TV Channel 2 news. Second, the authors undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 29 Israeli YAs. The analysis is based on an online survey of 600 young Israelis, aged 18–35 years. Findings Most YAs did not perceive mainstream media as enabling a reliable understanding of the issues important to them. The content analysis revealed that self-representation of YAs is rare, and that their issues were explained, and even resolved, by older adults. Furthermore, most of YAs' problems in mainstream news media were presented using a neo-liberal perspective. Finally, from the interviews, the authors learned that YAs did not find information that could help them deal with their most pressing economic and social issue, in the content offered by mainstream media. For most of them, social media overcomes these shortcomings. Originality/value Contrary to research that has explored YAs’ consumerism of new media outlets, this article explores how YAs in Israel are constructed in the media, as well as the way in which YAs understand mainstream and new social media coverage of the issues most important to them. Using media content analysis and interviews, the authors found that Young Adults tend to be ambivalent toward media coverage. They understand the lack of media information: most of them know that they do not learn enough from the media. This acknowledgment accompanies their tendency to internalize the neo-liberal logic and conservative Israeli national culture, in which class and economic redistribution are largely overlooked. Mainstream news media uses neo-liberal discourse, and young adults internalize this logic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome the limitations this discourse offers. They do so by turning to social media, mainly Facebook. Consequently, their behavior maintains the logic of the market, while also developing new social relations, enabled by social media.

Brief Reminders: Muslim Preachers, Mediation and Time

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-152
Author(s):  
Simon Stjernholm
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Multimodal Communication ◽  
Media Production ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Media ◽  
Religious Nature ◽  
Media Practices

This chapter explores a willingness on behalf of certain Muslim preachers to move beyond traditional preaching styles and create material that fits well within current social media practices. Focusing on the media productions of two Muslim preachers in Sweden, the chapter analyses how they experiment with oratory genres and modes. Using self-imposed brevity and multimodal communication in a type of media production defined here as a ‘reminder’, these preachers try to exhort their audiences to consider matters felt to be of pressing religious nature. The examples illustrate attempts to expand the reach of Islamic religious discourses beyond mosque environments and into the everyday life of an audience, with the potential of achieving a different kind of rhetorical work than a regular lecture or sermon.

scholarly journals Using the president’s tweets to understand political diversion in the age of social media

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Lewandowsky ◽  
Michael Jetter ◽  
Ullrich K. H. Ecker
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Increased Activity

Abstract Social media has arguably shifted political agenda-setting power away from mainstream media onto politicians. Current U.S. President Trump’s reliance on Twitter is unprecedented, but the underlying implications for agenda setting are poorly understood. Using the president as a case study, we present evidence suggesting that President Trump’s use of Twitter diverts crucial media (The New York Times and ABC News) from topics that are potentially harmful to him. We find that increased media coverage of the Mueller investigation is immediately followed by Trump tweeting increasingly about unrelated issues. This increased activity, in turn, is followed by a reduction in coverage of the Mueller investigation—a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that President Trump’s tweets may also successfully divert the media from topics that he considers threatening. The pattern is absent in placebo analyses involving Brexit coverage and several other topics that do not present a political risk to the president. Our results are robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables and examination of several alternative explanations, although the generality of the successful diversion must be established by further investigation.

scholarly journals “DO YOUR RESEARCH”: COVID-19, POST-SOCIALIST EXPERIENCE AND THE NARRATIVE OF INFORMATION INDEPENDENCE AMONG CZECH INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Hermanova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Political Event ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media

The COVID-19 pandemics highlighted the role of social media influencers as political communicators and drew attention to the question of accountability of influencers and their overall role in the media ecosystem. The aim of the paper is to analyze the role of lifestyle Instagram influencers in shaping the public narrative about COVID-19 as an orchestrated political event aimed at curbing civic freedom in the Czech Republic with focus on two key elements: 1) the politicization of the domestic (space) on Instagram and its gendered nature and 2) the framing of the role of influencers as democratic public voices offering an alternative to mainstream media, within the context of the post-socialist historical experience of totalitarian past. The presented analysis builds on digital ethnography among Czech female lifestyle influencers and content analysis of selected Czech influencers profiles.

scholarly journals Social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after the 2016 elections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Glueckstern ◽  
Alexi Benyacar ◽  
Sacha Grigri
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Media Use ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Media

According to Gill (2017), the present era of electronic revolution is one in which social media has become a means to an end in political sphere communication. Today, political marketing and advertising for persons seeking elective posts analyze, develop, execute and manage campaigns as a way of driving public opinion (Laing & Khattab, 2016). Social media provides a platform on which one can engage with the so-called connected generation. If the November 2016 elections are anything to go by, Twitter proved to be the medium of choice for citizens to engage and consume political content (Le et al., 2017). Ideally, tweets formed the basis of facilitating user engagement through the provision of content and newsbreaks. By extension, the mentioned discussions would influence the political discourse while establishing the capacity to determine the events of mainstream media. This study seeks to establish social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after his election. An understanding of such trend is essential in inferring as to whether Social media, in this case Twitter, plays a role in the current political spheres by promoting influence of a given aspirant. This stems from various studies that have stated that there is an association between social media use and an aspirant’s influence of the connected generation who are especially the youths. For instance, a thesis by Hwang (2016) observed that President Trump’s Twitter usage contributes to his political poll success which he associates with a reflection of his personality in the media use. This was also observed by Lilleker, Jackson, Thorsen and Veneti (2016) who stated that President Trump’s media use contributed to his election. It would hence be essential to understand President Trump’s nature of usage of Twitter. Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) conducted a study in which they observed use of fake news to influence people into certain political alignments. Twitter was also observed as one of the channels through which fake news was distributed. This study might help to create a foundation under which more studies can be done to determine the association of social media with other issues facing the society such as fake news and environment issues and their role on presidential elections. It would also be worth noting that there has been high politicization of President Trump’s use of Twitter especially during his Campaigns. This study would hence help to infer whether there is a change in this factor after his election.

scholarly journals The emotional impact of traditional and new media in social events

Comunicar ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (50) ◽  
pp. 109-118
Author(s):  
Minodora Salcudean ◽  
Raluca Muresan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Redes Sociales ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Events ◽  
The Media ◽  
Medios Sociales ◽  
Medios De Comunicacion

In past times, media were the sole vector to reflect in their entire complexity the events surrounding major world tragedies. Nowadays, social media are an essential component of the media process and classical press channels are connected to the social networking flow, where they can find information and, at the same time, tap into the emotional pulse of society. On 30 October 2015, a Bucharest nightclub was destroyed in a blaze tragedy in which 64 people were killed, most of them young. The present study focuses on how Romanian mainstream media and social media came together and made use of each other, generating post-tragedy side effects. Monitoring was conducted over a period of one month, starting from 30 October 2015, the date of the tragedy, until 30 November. Our investigation method combines content analysis and the interpretation of quantitative data, with reference to parameters such as context, themes, style, genre, and information/opinion rapport. The conclusions of this case study show that the interweaving between media and social media has generated a change of paradigm in mass communication, as a result of which professional journalists continue to play a role as responsible filters. En el pasado, al referirse a tragedias, los medios de comunicación representaban el único vector que reflejaba el acontecimiento en toda su complejidad. Hoy en día, los medios sociales constituyen un componente esencial del proceso mediático, y son los medios clásicos de prensa los que están conectados al flujo de las redes sociales, de las que, no solo recopilan información, sino también el pulso emocional de la sociedad. El 30 de octubre de 2015, en un club de Bucarest, se produjo un incendio que ocasionó 64 muertes, la mayoría jóvenes. Este estudio se centra en cómo el flujo mediático y las redes sociales en Rumanía se fusionaron y se apoyaron mutuamente, generando efectos secundarios tras la tragedia. El período de seguimiento fue de un mes, desde el 30 de octubre, cuando se produjo la tragedia, hasta el 30 de noviembre. El método de investigación combina el análisis de contenido y la interpretación cualitativa de los datos, con referencia a parámetros como el contexto, el tema del artículo, el estilo, el género periodístico o la relación información/opinión. Las conclusiones de este estudio nos muestran que la conexión entre los medios tradicionales y los medios sociales ha ocasionado un cambio en el paradigma de los medios de comunicación, cuyo resultado es que el papel de los periodistas profesionales como filtro de garantía sigue siendo prioritario.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document