What Are You Laughing At? Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s Internet Memes across Spreadable Media Contexts

Abstract

This article analyses a delimited corpus of Internet memes showcasing former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The theoretical framework is based on studies of memes and Internet memes as phenomena inserted in the online dimension of transmission and cultural production, and principles of the General Theory of Systems. The methodological approach is based on the classification tools developed by Dawkins (1976) to describe memes that spread widely across the digital space (fidelity, fecundity and longevity) and the patterns developed by Knobel and Lankshear (2007) as the main characteristics that contribute to an Internet meme's spreadability (humour, intertextuality and juxtaposition). These classification tools are applied aiming to select and analyse Internet memes that feature the Brazilian president. The goal of the article is to extract from both classification systems relevant tools for guiding understanding about how certain specific sets of memes connected to Dilma Rousseff became memorable and spreadable within the Brazilian media landscape. The result findings show that the categories and patterns applied to the analysis are not isolated and are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are frequently juxtaposed, which denotes their integrated nature and coherent disposition, corroborating to clarify and identify how certain specific sets of memes spread within the media.

<b>‘I will not become an Internet meme’: visual-verbal textualization process in the study of the power and resistance in Brazil

“…Following Gambarato and Komesu (2018), we observed the repeatability issue was a key factor, regarding the aspect of fecundity: 'which is the meme's capacity to be memorable and spread extensively across digital media'. In practical terms, this means that we observed which of these 12 preselected memes were the most commonly shared.…”

“…Regarding the research methods, the methodological design of this study is based on Gambarato and Komesu's (2018) approach. The authors present the taxonomy developed in the original Dawkins (1976) work to characterize successful memes, namely, fidelity, fecundity, and longevity, in addition to the patterns proposed by Knobel and Lankshear (2007), as factors that contribute to an Internet meme's fecundity, namely, humor, intertextuality, and juxtaposition.…”

“…The authors present the taxonomy developed in the original Dawkins (1976) work to characterize successful memes, namely, fidelity, fecundity, and longevity, in addition to the patterns proposed by Knobel and Lankshear (2007), as factors that contribute to an Internet meme's fecundity, namely, humor, intertextuality, and juxtaposition. Gambarato and Komesu (2018) used Dawkins' (1976) and Knobel and Lankshear's (2007) classification tools to select and analyze Internet memes that feature former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. Based on this methodological contribution, we selected the data set concerning the so-called Temer's veto of memes.…”

“…We analyzed the Internet memes considering the presence of the other in the discourse. Based on the methodological contribution of Gambarato and Komesu (2018), we selected a data set of six Internet memes concerning what has become known as President Michel Temer's veto of memes. Although the number of Internet memes might seem limited, the analysis was productive for the purposes of this article.…”

Мем-Летописец: Репрезентация Новостной Повестки Дня Пандемии В Меметическом Контенте Рунета

“…Следует уточнить, что мему посвящена уже достаточно объемная теоретическая литература; одному только перечислению авторских имен и существующих трактовок феномена мема нам пришлось бы посвятить едва ли не четверть объема данной статьи. Поэтому скажем лишь вкратце, что исследователи рассматривают данное явление не только как часть цифровой культуры, разновидность метафорического высказывания [Shifman, 2014;Piata, 2016], но и в качестве инструмента формирования политического имиджа в новых медиа [Gambarato, Komesu, 2018;Lalancette, Small, 2020;Ross, Rivers, 2017;Бродовская, Лифанова, 2021 и др. ]; как метод политического участия, избирательных технологий или механизм социального протеста [Neumayer, Rossi, 2018;Milner, 2013;Шомова, 2019 и др.…”