The Political Meme As a Social Anesthetic: Normalizing the Extreme
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THE POLITICAL MEME AS A SOCIAL ANESTHETIC: NORMALIZING THE EXTREME THROUGH AMBIGUITY, IRONY, AND ANONYMITY Author: Anna Linda Tomp Supervisor: Afsoun Afsahi, PhD Second reader: Gordon Arlen, PhD June 2020 Master’s thesis Political Science (Political Theory) Summary This thesis investigates how political memes could influence political views and potentially normalize the presence of extreme political views in public discourse. The author argues that the characteristics specific to memes – ambiguity, language, anonymity and spreadability – make political memes stand out from other political content and could potentially work as a “social anesthetic” for normalizing extreme views, by either working as a gateway to attract followers towards extreme views or by normalizing the presence of extreme views in public discussion. This, in turn, could pose a threat to democracy – the thesis will look into how this process could undermine political culture and encourage further polarization. The thesis is illustrated by various memetic genres, with a specific focus on memes of the alt-right online movement. 2 Table of Contents Summary .................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 4 1. Theoretical framework ....................................................................................................... 6 1.1. Political memes and their place in society ................................................................. 9 2. Normalizing extreme views in public discourse .............................................................. 16 2.1. Why political memes stand out ................................................................................ 17 2.2. The political meme as a social anesthetic ................................................................ 23 3. Discussion: why memes matter ....................................................................................... 29 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 33 References ................................................................................................................................ 36 3 Introduction November 8, 2016 – the day Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America. The unprecedented political duel between Trump and establishment candidate Hillary Clinton deepened the division between the people of the United States and shook up the foundations of political culture worldwide. Many continue to wonder what made such an outcome possible. After all, Trump was first and foremost known as a wealthy businessman frequently featured on reality TV, with little to no political experience. Yet, he became the unlikely “leader of the free world”. As with most major historical episodes, there is no single explanation for such unanticipated events, especially in light of the blaring mediatic noise surrounding the 2016 campaign. Unjust accusations towards journalists and political opponents, strong suspicions of Russian interference during the elections, divisive slogans and controversial views, sexual misconduct allegations, Trump’s activity on Twitter, the Clinton email controversy, and the candidates’ intense campaigning style – all of this played a role in the elections. However, one element made this campaign stand out from any other electoral cycle before – it was the role of memes on social media. Often wrongfully thought as something exclusively created and shared by young adults on social media, memes have quietly worked their way to the internet mainstream. There is reason to believe that memes should be taken as seriously as any other type of political content that is susceptible to impact political outcomes or to shape political views. Researchers like Limor Shifman (2011, 2013, 2014, 2017), Bradley E. Wiggins (2014, 2019) and author Angela Nagle (2017), among many others, have significantly contributed to shaping the landscape of meme studies and have helped decrypt the essence of memes in a broader societal context. This thesis will aim to contribute to existing research by taking a closer look into political memes, how 4 they have the potential to shape political views, what makes them stand out from other types of content and overarchingly, why memes matter. More specifically, the author aims to investigate the way how memes can influence how their audience perceives political views seen as extreme or radical. The author suggests that the ironic, humorous, and ambiguous nature of political memes has the power to gradually change how the audience perceives certain political views. This could be problematic in case these memes represent radical and extreme views: its audience could become gradually insensitive towards ideas that would usually be considered as inappropriate or offensive in the political mainstream. To achieve this goal, the thesis is composed of three parts. The theoretical framework first provides an overview of the history and main characteristics of the internet meme, followed by an attempt to define political memes. This will be followed by a chapter focusing on how political memes are different from other types of content online and a discussion on the specific features of the political meme that matter in the context of expressing political views, especially extreme views. The latter half of the second chapter discusses the power of the political meme to work as a social anesthetic, supported by the example of the alt-right. A third and final chapter will discuss how a society open to radical views present in public debate and everyday information feeds could affect the core principles of democracy, especially political culture, and how they could cause further polarization. As an illustrative case, the example of the alt- right and alt-right memes on social media is used throughout the thesis. 5 1. Theoretical framework To frame the discussion, an overview of research in the study of memes is more than necessary. This chapter provides the reader with a brief history of the meme; it attempts to define internet memes and looks into what distinguishes them from other content on the internet and finally; gives an account of the particularities of political memes, with a focus on alt-right memes and their specific characteristics. Locating the birth of the internet meme on a timeline can be a difficult task. Some associate the surge of internet memes with the early years of the World Wide Web, others pinpoint the beginning of the internet meme to be somewhere around the early years of social media, when the format of choice was often the demotivational poster or the lolcat. Whenever the exact birth year of the internet meme was, it should be noted that the concept of the meme itself is not native to the internet era. The roots of the meme as a broader concept go back as far as 1976, when Richard Dawkins introduced in “The Selfish Gene” his concept of the meme as a unit of cultural transmission (Dawkins, 2006, 618). He intended it to be understood as a metaphorical equivalent for the gene in biological evolution (Wiggins & Bowers, 2014, 1889; Seiffert- Brockmann et al., 2018, 2864). Two important elements that distinguish the internet meme from Dawkins’ concept is first, its relevance outside academic circles (the meme as understood by Dawkins can be identified through academic research, whereas the internet meme as a part of public discourse is something we can recognize in our everyday interactions), and second, the element of virality (Wiggins & Bowers, 2014, 1890). Among the many definitions of the internet meme, most scholars include the characteristic of being virally spread around the internet into even the most basic definitions. A straightforward definition understands the internet meme as “units of popular culture that are circulated, imitated, and transformed by individual Internet users, creating a shared cultural experience in the process” (Shifman, 2013, 367). 6 What exactly is a meme? Is it a picture online? Is it a joke? Or perhaps both? The answer to this is anything but straightforward, as describing the internet meme as just a “funny picture” doesn’t do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon. Furthermore, memes aren’t always still images, as they can also present themselves as quotes, GIFs, videos, cultural references, etc., nor are they necessarily humorous – some memes are truly morbid and dark. Another way to define the internet meme, which comes close to grasping its versatility and cultural significance is also by Shifman (2014, 41). In an attempt to tame the internet meme, she defines it as: “a) a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which b) were created with awareness of each other, and c) were circulated, imitated and/or transformed via the Internet by many users.” This definition does not impose any restrictions on the format and sees memes as “digital items”. Though this approach at first may seem overly vague, it delimits the unit of research with precision. It understands the internet meme as a group of digital items, provides a short explanation of how a meme is a meme thanks to its reciprocity with others, and also shortly describes its spreadable and remixed nature (Shifman, 2014, 42). The inclusion