GIF can be defined as a moving image characterized by brevity, repetition (loop), and an apparently low informative content; used as a pseudo-linguistic element, GIF is able to re-mediate a pre-existing text and to resemanticize it. The image originates from a process of decontextualization of an audiovisual element, quoting or referring to the original text (Uhlin) – taken from television, cinema, video art, or homemade. The fragment is then assigned with a new specific meaning, when it is used for a communicative purpose (especially on social networks), acting as a container of variable information designated to substitute articulate colloquial elements both emotional or explanatory. Through the analysis of the possible uses of GIF online, which exemplifies the actual concepts of post-truth and remix, the contribution aims to identify the communicative properties of the object, collecting cases within specific social platforms. GIF appears as a behavioral crossroad of contemporaneity, both in terms of re-use of creative contents and of demystification of current facts.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.