For the uninitiated, memes are:
“digital content units with common characteristics, created with awareness of each other, and circulated, imitated, and transformed via the Internet by many users.” -Limor Shifman, “Memes in Digital Culture”
“a picture or drawing (usually from an unwitting source) that’s taken on a shared, iconic quality, coupled with a resonating message.” -Jonathan L Zittrain, “Reflections on Internet Culture”
One like Disaster Girl:
So, what is up with memes? Well, it depends on who you ask.
Since 2016′s presidential elections, articles about memes have been published addressing mixed feelings about them. They are to blame for the rise of the alt-right, a white nationalist movement that has helped spread Trump’s radical rhetoric, and now colleges are rescinding admissions to prospective students for creating and sharing tasteless political memes.
There is no doubt memes are shaping the way people engage in political conversation, but is it all that bad? In addition to being funny, memes are accessible and time-efficient. Myles, a journalism student interviewed for a VICE article titled “ How Meme Culture Is Getting Teens into Marxism” argues
Memes aren’t the be-all and end-all of political engagement, but they can often help explain and engage young people in a discourse that they get shut out of.
To further analyze memes’ impact on society, we need to understand rhetoric and its application on Internet memes.
Rhetoric in mainstream media has a bad rep especially in politics, but it serves a greater purpose in everyday communication. Rhetoric is the art and practice of effectively creating and sharing a message to a particular audience and in return allows them to engage in that conversation.
We’ll explore 6 keys to develop rhetorical skill provided by Hephzibah Roskelly, English Professor at University of North Carolina, and David Jolliffe, Professor and Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas, authors of “Everyday Use: Rhetoric and Work in Reading and Writing” to approach memes more mindfully.
#1: Understanding Persona
As the audience, how is the speaker using their tone and diction to present themselves according to what they have to say?
#2: Understanding Appeals to the Audience
Logos (logic), ethos (credibility), and pathos (emotion) are appeals used to pull an audience into conversation.
#3: Understanding Subject Matter and Its Treatment
The more general points and supporting material, the merrier!
#4: Understanding Context
The content of a message shouldn’t highlight one side of a story; otherwise, it fails to provide enough insight to people who may be unfamiliar with the topic or neglect to include thoughts/feelings of others who know about it.
#5: Understanding Intention
Keep in mind that speakers have an aim or purpose to make their audience believe or do something as a result of the message.
#6: Understanding Genre
What is the context? Who needs to know about it? What is the best way to tell them? Example: A Tumblr post about political memes where memes are made and shared.
Memes are able to reach out to a mass of people just as much as television news reporters, and should be used carefully. It’s important to think about them more critically, and hopefully use them more constructively especially in political engagement by understanding the rhetoric in them.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/7xz8kb/how-meme-culture-is-getting-teens-into-marxism
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/harvards-ugly-offshoot-of-campus-meme-culture
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470412914544540
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/memes-digital-culture
Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing, Second Edition by Hephzibah Roskelly and David A. Jollife
