The Dissonance of “Civil” Religion in Religious-Political Memetic Discourse During the 2016 Presidential Elections

Abstract

This article explores the interrelationship between religion and politics as presented through memetic discourse surrounding the 2016 presidential election. Based on a study of 150 Internet memes of political candidates and core issues framed by religious discourse, and a case study of memes focused on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, we investigated the distinct understanding of what constitutes religion that arises. Overwhelmingly, these memes evoke what is known as "Civil Religion," where religion becomes a tool to interpret politics, with roots in nationalist ideologies. This challenges previous research suggesting religious memetic discourse primarily promotes a view of "lived religion," or personalized interpretations of traditional religious beliefs and practices. Drawing on previous research of the dominant genres of religious memes and ways they frame religion, we find religious-political memes enact distinct strategies of political God Talk where religious discourse is read through a political lens, and vice versa. This is highly problematic as it presents religion in broad brushstrokes that fail to acknowledge the diversity of religious communities and their responses to politics within American cultural discourse. Overall, we argue religious-political memes showcase the dissonance created by mixing religion and politics in public discourse online, especially when meme messages representing conservative Christianity suggest they speak for all of American religious culture.

Memes, National Identity and National Belonging: Visual “Nation-Talk” on Indian Social Media Pages

“…The means used for collection of data in the study of memes has evolved in the course of the last decade. Some researchers have utilized the metrics provided by Google such as Google Trends data on keywords (Aharoni 2019; Campbell et al 2018). Such memes are usually cross-referenced with memetic material available on easily available meme-aggregator and archival sites such as knowyourmeme.com 1 .…”

Religious Responses to Social Distancing Revealed through Memes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This includes how memes have stereotyped particular populations (i.e., Al-Rawi et al 2021), how memes can contribute to the circulation of bias or misinformation (i.e., Sebba-Elran 2021), and the ways that memes can reflect or help create rhetorical strategies that reinforce and shape public perceptions of the coronavirus (i.e., Pulos 2021). Yet little attention has been given to the stories that religion-focused internet memes tell about religious groups and the pandemic except to simply name this phenomenon (Campbell 2020c;Merkert 2021) or highlight the tendency of pandemic memes to promote religious bias and negative framings (Rajan and Venkatraman 2021), a tendency already noted in previous research (Campbell et al 2018a(Campbell et al , 2018b.…”

“…Based on these studies, memes draw on different understandings of religion. For example, studies define religion in terms of official institutional structures (Borrough and Feller 2015), "lived" forms of religion that highlight everyday personalized religious practices of adherents (Aguilar et al 2017), or "civil religion", which emphasizes the religious narratives and symbolism embedded in politics (Campbell et al 2018a).…”

ISU SOSIAL DALAM BENTUK INTERNET MEME MENJELANG PEMILIHAN PRESIDEN 2019 (Analisis Konten pada Meme Gambar dalam Instagram @memecomic.id)

“…Internet memes dapat berbentuk visual, audial, teks, hyperlink atau kombinasi di antaranya. Sebuah internet memes lazimnya berisi wacana yang memperbincangkan isu tertentu (Campbell, Arredondo, Dundas, & Wolf, 2018;Silvestri, 2016). Wacana tersebut dapat berevolusi melalui tindak imitasi dan replikasi yang dilakukan oleh banyak orang (Seiffert-Brockmann, Diehl, & Dobusch, 2018).…”