“The end justifies the memes”: A feminist relational discourse analysis of the role of macro memes in facilitating supportive discussions for victim-survivors of narcissistic abuse

Abstract

This article reports the results of a qualitative study which aimed to investigate the role of internet memes in facilitating supportive discussions among women on an online platform concerning narcissistic abuse. Narcissistic abuse is an under-recognised form of abuse underpinning experiences of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence. The study focuses upon women’s communication through the use of Facebook memes. Studying these and their associated content/posts is important for examining narcissistic abuse experiences because memes have been identified as immediate conveyors of meaning, and associated posts and comments provide rich data that can generate new findings pertinent to abuse and support experiences. A total of 4 public Facebook pages concerning narcissistic abuse were used to analyse 100 memes and their attached comments/posts, which ranged from 15 to 175 per meme with an arithmetic mean of 39.4. Employing a feminist relational discourse analysis (FRDA) framework, the data were categorised in terms of thematic frames and dominant discourses of victim-survivors. The analysis identified how community-specific Facebook pages assisted help-seeking discussions and expressions of distress. It also suggested that memes function as speech acts to discursively shape online conversations related to experiences of narcissistic abuse. As immediate conveyors of meaning, memes facilitated emotional expression to provide psychosocial support and a form of feminist activism to those who experienced feelings of isolation and marginalisation within broader political, psychological, and social contexts.