Specialized Qualitative Research and Tools

ASSIGNMENT-2

NAME: CHETAN PANDEY

PRN: 18050341017

Internet meme and Political Discourse: A study on the impact of internet meme
on the political framework of India.
Introduction:
Richard Dawkins, a pioneer in the study of memetics, introduced the concept of ‘memes’ in
his book ‘The Selfish Gene (1976). The term meme comes from the Greek word ‘mimeme’
which means ‘to imitate’. This concept then became a part of the popular culture. Again with
the advent of internet and digital technologies, the term ‘Internet Meme’ gained popularity.
Internet meme is considered as a medium of promotion which can reach wider audience in a
short span of time. The history of meme dates back to the time when emoticons were
developed. The sideways smiley face which was created using punctuation marks by Scott E.
Fahlman in 1982 was the first emoticon that was used in online communication. Fahlman
mentioned that emoticons were required in online mode of communication as they help in
understanding humour or sarcasm used in the language.

Digital media technologies and social networks allow regular people to contribute to the
general media environment through their online activities and those contributions have the
potential to reach a wide audience. In a culture where “going viral” is a measure of value,
content from relatively anonymous or little-known sources can be widely consumed by
internet users (Jenkins, Ford & Green, 2013; Wasik, 2009). Be it Rahul Bose posting the
most expensive banana bill ever or be it Ravi Shastri making some unusual claim all this
spread like fire on the internet and go viral in next to no time. However, little is currently
known about how different kinds of user-generated media content influence the people who
view them, especially when the content deals with real-world issues such as politics. The
most recent example being the current political scenario in Karnataka and the parties
involved in it. The memes are out and people are actually enjoying them. Here are a few
sample memes:
Literature Review:
Internet memes are one form of user-generated, digital media content that may have real
world effects on those who view them. Memes often light-hearted, often referencing pop
culture, usually created anonymously by regular people, and circulated online matter for
politics in part because they may influence how people feel about important political issues.
THEME 1: INTERNET MEMES AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE DAILY LIFECYCLE OF A USER:

Internet meme has been an important part of the social life as it helps in opinion formation.
Amongst the various roles, a major one is that it helps in conveying information. Most of the
times for digital natives it acts like a primary source of information too as they turn to read
more of the news on the basis of the memes made on it. (Liisi Lainesk, 2016)
Ex: We never knew about the claim made by Rahul Gandhi with respect to potato and gold
until we saw the memes and the viral video.
Again, if you see a lot of memes are used as a medium for persuading citizens to vote for a
particular political party. These memes will target all the shortcomings and unfulfilled
promises made by the opposition and spread it across. Shiftman in his book called ‘Memes in
Digital Culture’, explains how this medium was efficiently used during the 2008 US
elections. In the Indian context it was used by both BJP and Congress as we saw a twitter
battle with both parties taking a dig at each other in the recently concluded Lok Sabha
elections.
In his research, Shiftman also mentioned that these memes are more of user generated
content than information generated by political elites. Even though they are user generated
these memes look professional. They include videos and photos produced by professional
artists. He also said that a lot of research goes into making of these content as a part of
political campaigning and these memes are a mode through which civic participation is
encouraged as the citizens can express their political opinions and be a part of debates and
discussions which cannot be done through traditional mediums. (Shiftman, 2013)
THEME 2: INTENRET MEMES AND THEIR ROLE IN THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Memes have played an important role in political discourse. One of the recent most
prominent meme was the #ZodiacTed that was viral during the elections in USA in 2016.
These memes portrayed Ted Cruz as a zodiac killer. A research survey by ‘Public Policy
Polling’ concluded that due to these memes about 40% of the voters in Florida thought that
he was actually a zodiac killer and their voting decisions were influenced by these memes.
The internet memes also led to political engagement of people. Memes have played a major
role in Indian politics too. It has been used as a medium to communicate views about issues,
people and political parties. Memes were prominently used during the issue of
demonetization, GST etc. It is also used widely by the opposition parties to comment on
decisions of the government. (Kulkarni, 2017)
Political humour has been an important part of political discourse in a society. It attracts not
only the people who are active in politics but also helps in forming opinions for people who
are not active participants in political issues and discussions. Various researchers’ mention.
Also political humour is a mix of humour and user generated content. It thus includes the
opinion of the masses and hence has a deeper impact on the audience. (Hajizada, 2010).

THEME 3: THE CONSUMPTION OF INFORMATION SPREAD BY INTERNET MEMES AND ITS

EFFECT ON THE MIND-SET AND BEHAVIOUR OF PEOPLE

How people feel is vital to engagement with information, especially political information,
because it changes what issues they pay attention to, influences how they look for political
information, affects how they process that information, shapes how they view the world, and
ultimately, can change a range of political activities (Wyer, 2004). Let’s take an example of
the Indian political scenario. Here in the picture below, PM Modi’s face is incorporated in
the body of Thanos (A fictional character in Marvel movies) who is considered as a
powerhouse and has the power Gauntlet with all those infinity stones, now if you compare it
with the Prime Minister he is also sitting at the helm and has a lot of power. So people start
relating different movie characters to their leaders and this how memes their views are
shaped and perceptions are build.

Research has also demonstrated that people use memes to contribute to public conversations
about political events going on in the world around them (Milner, 2012; Milner, 2013;
Shifman, 2014). The example quoted in the research paper was of the second presidential
debate of 2012 in which Republican nominee Mitt Romney responded to a question about his
hiring process for female job candidates by explaining, “I went to a number of women's
groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’ and they brought us whole binders full of
women.” This comment sparked a “Binders Full of Women” meme, which included a range
of images such as women’s legs poking out of Trapper Keeper binders or other images with
textual references to the comment. Talking about the Indian context, the remarks made by
Congress president Rahul Gandhi referring the prime minister as a chor (thief) caused a
massive spur and an entire campaign called “Mai Bhi Chowkidar” was launched which was
quite staggering to say the least, considering the amount of people who joined in and the
amount of memes shared during that particular time.
THEME 4: INTERNET MEMES AND ITS ROLE IN DRIVING POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
In a paper published by Andrew S. Ross and Damien J. Rivers the Internet memes are shown
to be an effective mode of political participation. The delegitimization strategies of
authorization, moral evaluation, rationalization and mythopoeisis are highlighted and the
main focus here is on the 2016 U.S Presidential election where Donald Trump and Hilary
Clinton were literally having a war of words.
Many professions like public relations and advertising have also started using memes
creatively to communicate their message and attract audiences. The information that is passed
through these memes is for creating a buzz and is for publicity purpose rather than for just
giving information. Memes that are used in political campaigning are used for creating
public opinion and as a tool for propaganda. (Bauckhage, 2011).

:
THEME 5: INTERNET MEMES AND THE INFLUENCE OF ELITES AND TYCOONS

According to Hargittai and Walejko (2008), an individual’s socioeconomic status also plays
a crucial role in shaping his creative activity. Content creation and sharing online constitute
advanced uses of information technologies, which naturally require a specific skills-set. This
web-savvy requirement enables those from a higher socioeconomic status to more easily
create and spread content online, thus creating a participation divide.

THEME 6: INTERNET MEMES AND THE EASE OF CREATION

As far as memes are concerned, the creation of online content is facilitated by the availability
of sites allowing “do it 15 yourself production” (Van Dijk 2009, p.44); for instance, memes
can easily be created through websites like Meme Generator, Quickmeme, and
MemeCreator, which allow users to simply add their own captions to popular meme
templates. This is an indication that meme creation has become accessible to more people, as
photo editing and visual manipulation skills are no longer required.
THEME 7: INTERNET MEMES AND RETENTIVE ATTENTION
When considering the relationships between citizens’ media use and their political decision-
making, it is easy for memes to get overlooked because they may not appear to be substantive
content. Although according their formal definition memes are units of culture passed on by
imitation (Blackmore, 1999), this study uses the term as defined by popular usage, which
generally refers to user-generated digital content that incorporates humour and visuals and
that is distributed to a wide audience via informal networks.
Theoretical and Conceptual Framework:
The theoretical and conceptual framework explains the path of a research and grounds it
firmly in theoretical constructs. The overall aim of the two frameworks is to make research
findings more meaningful, acceptable to the theoretical constructs in the research field and
ensures generalizability. (Sinclair & Marlene, 2007)
If you look at memes in general a lot of theories and models can be applied for study. Since,
the focus here is on the study of political memes and its impact on the political framework we
will only look at those theories pertaining to politics.
The three major theories, models, constructs used in the above research include:
1. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo

2. Agenda Setting Theory by Max McCombs and Donald Shaw

3. Diffusion of Innovations Theory by Everett Rodgers (Derving useful information

from ideas of Katz & Lazarsfeld and the two-step flow theory)

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of management explains how persuasion is used

as a tool to affect opinions. There are two ways of persuasion. One that focuses persuasion
through cognitive way that elaborates what is presented and the second route where an
argument is formed to persuade a person and his/her opinion is manipulated. Memes
peripheral route of persuasion. Memes are a tool of political discourse that uses the
cognitive and the peripheral route to communicate and to influence public opinions. This
tool of discourse uses humour and satire as elements for persuasion. (McClure, 2016).
Agenda setting theory is also applied to the research. The memes are used by the media
companies to form opinions. Through these memes the media companies do propaganda
and publicize their ideologies as they do not just give information to the people but analyses
it critically and gives a view on it. In theoretical words, these media companies through the
use of memes do not just tell people what to think but they tell them what to think about. A
sub theory of Framing is applicable here where the reality is altered and the pictures in our
heads are nothing but the opinion that the media companies try to shape.

Diffusion of Innovations Theory is also applied in the research. According to E.

Rodgers not all individuals exert an equal amount of influence over others. In this sense
opinion leaders are influential in spreading either positive or negative information about
an innovation. Rogers relies on the ideas of Katz & Lazarsfeld and the two-step flow
theory in developing his ideas on the influence of opinion leaders.

Opinion leaders have the most influence during the evaluation stage of the innovation-
decision process and on late adopters. In addition, opinion leaders typically have greater
exposure to the mass media, more cosmopolitan, greater contact with change agents, more
social experience and exposure, higher socioeconomic status, and are more innovative than
others.
A Research was done in the early 1950s at the University of Chicago attempting to assess the
cost-effectiveness of broadcast advertising on the diffusion of new products and services. The
findings were that opinion leadership tended to be organized into a hierarchy within a
society, with each level in the hierarchy having most influence over other members in the
same level, and on those in the next level below it.

Key Research Questions:

Q 1. Do you think internet memes can be used as an effective medium of

communication?
Q 2. Can Internet memes lead to political discourse?
Q 3. Do internet memes influence you to support/oppose a political party
Q 4. Do internet memes influence political decisions?
Conclusion:

Internet memes have been used as a tool in political discourse and there is a paradigm shift
in the tools used due to the coming of new media. Traditional mediums however are still
used as a medium for communication with the digital migrants. Traditional as well as new
mediums are used for communicating with the digital natives. Memes are produced and
distributed in real time and are shared instantly on various social media platform by the
digital users and the reduced rates and improved connectivity in data connections have only
helped their cause.
Political parties use these memes to oppose or criticize certain issues. These memes are
used through social networking platforms to communicate the ideas to a larger audience.
Internet memes are mostly user generated but there are also the ones that are developed by
political parties as a tool for propaganda
The fact of the matter is even though these memes are accepted by people for communicating
their ideas and views it does not necessarily have a great influence or impact on the
voting behaviour or political views as many people take it in a light and casual way even
after being constantly poked by various meme page administrators and paid news agencies.
To get more inclusive and precise information qualitative tools like survey, questionnaires
can be used but the general consensus amongst digital users still remains the same.

REFERENCES:
Dawkins, R. (1989). The Selfish Gene . Oxford Landmark Science
Bauckhage, C. (2011). Insights into internet memes. Association of Advancement in
Artificial Intelligence.
Liisi Lainesk, P. V. (2016). Laughing across borders: Intertextuality of Internet memes.
European Journal of Humour Research .
Wyer, Jr. (2012). A theory of social information processing.
Shiftman, L. (2013). Memes in Digital Culture. MIT Press.
Hajizada, K. P. (2010). Humour as a means of dissent in the digital era: The case of
Authoritarian Azerbaijan. No laughing matter.
Blackmore, Susan. (2000). The Meme Machine.
Karimnia, Amin. (2011). Teun A. van Dijk. 2009. Society and discourse: How social contexts
influence text and talk.
Sinclair, Marlene. (2007). A guide to understanding theoretical and conceptual frameworks.
Evidence Based Midwifery.
Milner, H. R. (2012). Towards transformative knowledge construction in urban education.
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Research Conference.
Hargittai, Eszter & Walejko, Gina. (2008). The Participation Divide: Content Creation and
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Nowak. (2016). Internet meme as meaningful discourse: Towards theory of multi participant
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Ross, Andrew & Rivers, Damian J. (2017). Internet Memes as Polyvocal Political
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THANK YOU!!