Evasive Targets: Deciphering Polysemy in Mediated Humor

Boxman-Shabtai, Lillian; Shifman, Limor

doi:10.1111/jcom.12116

Cited by 39 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…This can be considered a form of ‘unstereotypical stereotyping’ (Boxman-Shabtai and Shifman, 2014: 986). Women take up and perpetuate stereotypes about women in science and women in general.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our analysis shows that the ironic and humorous ways in which they contributed to the hashtag protest were used to counter the stereotypical and misogynist attributions experienced by women scientists in their working environment, which were verbalized in Hunt’s speech. Humorous tweets used ‘unstereotypical stereotyping’ (Boxman-Shabtai and Shifman, 2014) and, thus, deployed a body politics that exposed and subversively attacked existing gender stereotypes about women in science and social norms and ideas about ‘sexiness’. However, as ‘the original derogatory stereotypes are still embedded’ (Boxman-Shabtai and Shifman, 2014: 992), this humorous strategy of subversion might still come with the risk of being polysemic and open to various readings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It must further be emphasized that, contrary to other feminist hashtags and memes, the visibility of ‘ordinary voices’ (Chouliaraki, 2010) was limited to the voices of a social and cultural elite – mainly highly educated White women conducting research in the hard sciences. In particular, ‘unstereotypical stereotyping’ (Boxman-Shabtai and Shifman, 2014) is an ironic technique that social and cultural elites can easily apply, but it can have a stronger backlash when used by underprivileged social and cultural groups and minorities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And exactly this also opens up the possibility of deconstructing gender and exposing stereotypes as such. We assume that women researchers in the case of #distractinglysexy used a strategy that Boxman-Shabtai and Shifman (2014: 986) have called ‘unstereotypical stereotyping’. By taking up stereotypes about women and women in sciences and by parodying them humorously, these stereotypes are subversively exposed, ridiculed and rejected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Memes against sexism? A multi-method analysis of the feminist protest hashtag #distractinglysexy and its resonance in the mainstream news media

Brantner¹,

Lobinger

Stehling

2019

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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Hashtag feminism has become a popular tactic of online protest against gender inequality. Using the Twitter hashtag #distractinglysexy, women scientists posted pictures of themselves in labs or during field research to contest misogynist remarks by Nobel laureate Tim Hunt. We examined the resulting humorous and memetic discourse on Twitter as well as its coverage in news media combining a content analysis of the multimodal tweets with a qualitative discourse analysis of German and British news media. The results show that the ironic memes in which researchers addressed sexism in academia by parodying social norms and ideals of ‘sexiness’ yielded substantial media attention, but with differences in the two countries: While the hashtag #distractinglysexy initiated a broader debate on sexism and discrimination in academia in the UK news media discourse, in the German context, this form of ‘self-mediation’ was portrayed either as ‘something funny on the Web’ or as a harmful firestorm.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Memes against sexism? A multi-method analysis of the feminist protest hashtag #distractinglysexy and its resonance in the mainstream news media

Brantner¹,

Lobinger

Stehling

2019

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The perpetual embedding and re-embedding of GIFs in new conversations, listicles, and coverage of different topics highlight the content’s malleability as it is repeatedly appropriated. GIFs demonstrate what Boxman-Shabtai and Shifman (2014) describe as “centrifugal multimodality”: the meaning constructed here is based not just on the content of the GIF but also on the surrounding factors (captions, messages, and the like) which provide additional context and layers for interpretation. As Morley (1980) established in regard to televisual texts, audience interpretations are often determined by subjectivity and positionality.…”

Section: Communicative Affordances Of the Gifmentioning

confidence: 87%

Never Gonna GIF You Up: Analyzing the Cultural Significance of the Animated GIF

Miltner

Highfield

2017

Social Media + Society

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The animated Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a digital file format with a long history within internet cultures and digital content. Emblematic of the early Web, the GIF fell from favor in the late 1990s before experiencing a resurgence that has seen the format become ubiquitous within digital communication. While the GIF has certain technical affordances that make it highly versatile, this is not the sole reason for its ubiquity. Instead, GIFs have become a key communication tool in contemporary digital cultures thanks to a combination of their features, constraints, and affordances. GIFs are polysemic, largely because they are isolated snippets of larger texts. This, combined with their endless, looping repetition, allows them to relay multiple levels of meaning in a single GIF. This symbolic complexity makes them an ideal tool for enhancing two core aspects of digital communication: the performance of affect and the demonstration of cultural knowledge. The combined impact of these capabilities imbues the GIF with resistant potential, but it has also made it ripe for commodification. In this article, we outline and articulate the GIF’s features and affordances, investigate their implications, and discuss their broader significance for digital culture and communication.

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Bridging gaps in image meme research: A multidisciplinary paradigm for scaling up qualitative analyses

Mascarenhas,

Friedman,

Cordes

2024

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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This paper outlines a multidisciplinary framework (Digital Rhetorical Ecosystem or DRE3) for scaling up qualitative analyses of image memes. First, we make a case for applying rhetorical theory to examine image memes as quasi‐arguments that promote claims on a variety of political and social issues. Next, we argue for integrating rhetorical analysis of image memes into an ecological framework to trace interaction and evolution of memetic claims as they coalesce into evidence ecosystems that inform public narratives. Finally, we apply a computational framework to address the particular problem of claim identification in memes at large scales. Our integrated framework answers the recent call in information studies to highlight the social, political, and cultural attributes of information phenomena, and bridges the divide between small‐scale qualitative analyses and large‐scale computational analyses of image memes. We present this theoretical framework to guide the development of research questions, processes, and computational architecture to study the widespread and powerful influence of image memes in shaping consequential public beliefs and sentiments.

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Evasive Targets: Deciphering Polysemy in Mediated Humor

Cited by 39 publications

References 38 publications

Memes against sexism? A multi-method analysis of the feminist protest hashtag #distractinglysexy and its resonance in the mainstream news media

Memes against sexism? A multi-method analysis of the feminist protest hashtag #distractinglysexy and its resonance in the mainstream news media

Never Gonna GIF You Up: Analyzing the Cultural Significance of the Animated GIF

Bridging gaps in image meme research: A multidisciplinary paradigm for scaling up qualitative analyses

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