Article published In: Hate Speech in Online Media
Edited by Anton Granvik, Mélanie Buchart and Hartmut Lenk
[Internet Pragmatics 6:2] 2023
► pp. 239–258
Semiotic excess in memes
From postdigital creativity to social violence
Published online: 17 October 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00098.wag
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00098.wag
Abstract
Since the apparition of the web 2.0, memes have emerged as a form of language that blends visual and linguistic signs in a compressed format. Memes represent a typical production of our postdigital society, insofar as they blur boundaries between the digital and the non-digital, circulate quickly and may have an influence on our society. Memes also participate in the reinterpreting and expressing complex emotions, ideas, and cultural references in a new, condensed form. The aim of this paper is to show how memes convey hateful representations, both through language and visual signs based on popular culture, thus participating in a climate of violence in public discourse. This discourse analysis is based on a case study of memes that present excessive messages, through a particular blend of linguistic and visual utterances.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Memes as complex postdigital objects
- 2.A theory of memes
- 3.Analyzing memes
- 4.Social and semiotic violence in memes
- 5.Antifeminism and anti-#BlackLivesMatter in memes: Two case studies
- 6.Conclusion: Accelerating hate speech
- Notes
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