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Might Memes Matter? Might Memes Matter? On the Relationship between Exposure to Internet Memes and Attitudes towards Global Issues By Tom Willems (u1260314, ANR 677455) MA Thesis Sociology Spring Semester 2020 Tilburg University Under the supervision of Dr. Tim Reeskens Second Reader: Dr. Bram Peper 1 | P a g e Abstract This Master‟s Thesis aims to investigate the relationship between exposure to internet memes about global issues, and a person‟s attitudes of concern towards said issues (or: their capacity to take these issues seriously). A review of the available literature raises the suggestion that internet memes may influence a person‟s attitudes of concern through the mechanism of humor. Humor, in turn relates to attitudes of concern through mechanisms of trivialization and coping. Based on these expectations, a conceptual model and set of hypotheses are identified, which are then tested through statistical analysis on data obtained through an experiment on the topic of the global issue of climate change carried out amongst 224 students living in the Netherlands. The results of this analysis reveal no significant effects of exposure to humorous internet memes about the global issue of climate change on a person‟s attitudes of environmental concern. However, the findings from the analysis do reveal new insights into how internet memes might relate to (temporary) attitudinal changes and humor. 2 | P a g e Table of Contents Abstract 2 [Chapter 1] Introduction 4 [Chapter 2] Theoretical Framework 9 [2.1] On Internet Memes and their Creator-Consumers 9 [2.2] On Attitudes towards Global Issues 15 [2.3] On Humor I: Defining Humor 17 [2.4] On Humor II: General Mechanisms 19 [2.5] On Humor III: Trivialization 24 [2.6] On Humor IV: Coping 25 [2.7] Conceptual Model 26 [Chapter 3] Methodology, Analysis & Results 28 [3.1] Research Design, Data Collection & Sample 28 [3.2] Measurement & Operationalization of Variables 32 [3.3] Analysis I: ANOVA 40 [3.4] Analysis II: EnvConcern Regressed 43 [3.5] Analysis III: Trivialization Regressed 46 [3.6] Analysis IV: Coping Regressed 49 [3.7] Analysis V: Final Model 52 [Chapter 4] Discussion & Conclusion 54 Reference List 62 Appendix: Questions Measuring Environmental Attitudes 71 3 | P a g e Chapter 1: Introduction There can be little doubt that amongst the many technological innovations made in the past few decades, one of the most impactful to the world has been the introduction of the internet. Today, the internet is used by around 58.8% of the world population, and around 90% of Europeans and Americans claim to regularly make use of it (Internet World Stats, 2019). The internet has provided the world with easy access to knowledge, communication and entertainment, and for many it is difficult to imagine a life without it. Amongst the many novelties that have been introduced to the world with the rise of the internet, a curious phenomenon that has become increasingly wide-spread over the past decade is the „Internet Meme‟1: specific phrases, paragraphs, images or videos which are spread by internet users – typically because of their humorous nature – to other internet users (Diaz & Mauricio, 2013; Kliger-Vilenchik & Thorson, 2016). Today, internet memes are created, spread, consumed and enjoyed by internet users throughout the world at a rapid pace: according to Wiggins & Bowers (2015, pp. 1890) “social networks distribute internet memes without cessation every moment of every day. Most Facebook users likely encounter a meme and/or distribute a meme daily.” Observing this reach and popularity internet memes have, Segev et al. (2015, pp. 417-418) have noted them to be “part of the mundane „web diet‟ of many internet users, casually popping up in visits to platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit”. Internet memes can be created by anyone with “a minimum of required effort and added creativity” (Csordás et al., 2017, pp. 252), and can essentially relate to any imaginable topic, no matter how large or small they may be. 1 Today, it is common practice to abbreviate the phrase „internet meme‟ to simply the word „meme‟. Whilst the word „meme‟ is sometimes used to refer to other concepts (see also Chapter 1), in this Thesis, it will also refer to the concept of the „internet meme‟, unless stated otherwise. 4 | P a g e Because of internet memes‟ common, effortless and easily-consumable nature, one may be quick to discount them as merely “insignificant embodiments of silliness and whimsicality” (Shifman, 2014, pp. 340). However, as internet memes have grown more common and ingrained in our daily lives, “it has become increasingly important to see them as serious cultural objects” (Johnston, 2019) with impactful real-life effects on how certain issues are treated and perceived (Williams et al., 2016) and on how people shape their view of the world (Huntington, 2017). Internet memes may very well not be “just funny” anymore (Klein, 2018), but phenomena with an actual widespread impact on societies worldwide. To illustrate, authors have noted that internet memes have played an influential role in shaping the 2012 presidential election in the United States (Klein, 2018; Heiskanen, 2017), with American news outlet The Independent even directly attributing (part of) Hillary Clinton‟s loss to political internet memes and warning that “politicians are ignoring them at their own peril” (Denisova, 2016). Furthermore, internet memes have been noted to contribute to (online) racial discrimination (Williams et al., 2016), the creation of psychological biases (Diaz & Mauricio, 2013) and opinion influencing (Kulkarni, 2017; Ross & Rivers, 2019) Considering both the increasing popularity of internet memes and their notable real-life effects, it stands to reason that improving our understanding of this relatively novel phenomenon is a worthwhile endeavor. Whilst some researchers have picked up on this endeavor, a significant amount of the academic focus has been placed on the role internet memes play in shaping political attitudes specifically. Whilst this focus is certainly worthwhile, it is expectedly worthwhile to broaden this horizon in order to investigate to a greater extent different ways in which internet memes affect contemporary societies. 5 | P a g e In line with this broadening of horizons, this Master‟s Thesis will focus on examining internet memes as relating to global issues. Like political internet memes, internet memes about serious topics oft on the minds of peoples like racism (Yoon, 2016), climate change (Davis et al., 2016), natural disasters (Marcus & Singer, 2017) and pandemics like the current COVID- 19 crisis (Haasch, 2020) are common. Also like with political internet memes, global-issues- related internet memes are expected to have a real-life impact on how global issues are treated and perceived, and how the place they are given in the world is shaped. Notably and importantly, it is possible that this real-life impact may be inherently problematic. In 2013, Dominic Basulto expressed his concern about the impact of the prevalence of internet memes relating to global issues. He argued that when internet memes start making their way into areas of serious endeavor – like when they relate to global issues – the serious nature of the topics the memes are about may be overshadowed by the memes‟ humorous nature. In other words, internet memes may introduce humor to an area where humor should not have a place; when this occurs, Basulto argued, it “trivializes the big idea, and in the process, trivializes who we are as humans”. Basulto‟s concern raises a valid point. Indeed, researchers have in the past found that when humor is introduced to serious topics, people tend to find it more difficult to continue to take these topics as seriously (Nabi et al., 2007; Moyer-Gusé et al., 2011; see also Chapter 2). This poses a problem. With regards to global issues like the aforementioned racism and climate change, people taking them seriously is of high importance if these issues are to be solved. After all, it is difficult to see how a person or a people would allocate their attention, resources or time addressing racism, climate change etc. if they do not take these issues seriously. If humor indeed negatively affects people‟s capacity to take serious topics seriously, it is not difficult to see how humorous internet memes about global issues may negatively impact the capacity of people to take these global issues seriously. 6 | P a g e With it being rather common to make memes about global issues, then, it is possible that unbeknownst to the many meme creators and consumers across the world, their enjoyment of global issues-related internet memes is actually eroding their ability to take said global issues seriously. If this is indeed the case, that would make these kinds of memes inherently problematic, arguably standing in the way of human progress. Despite this, up to my knowledge no research aimed at investigating how exposure to internet memes about global issues relates to a person‟s capacity to take said issues seriously exists. Considering that internet memes are still a relatively novel phenomenon and the field of internet meme research is yet somewhat infantile, this is to an extent understandable. Within the more established field of humor research, investigations into the effect of humor on a person‟s capacity to take serious topics seriously noticeably does exist to a larger extent, and hence this body of research will be drawn upon in this Thesis. However, the conclusions drawn by different authors in this field are often conflicting and fail to give a clear overall picture. Hence, investigating the above-mentioned relationship makes for a valuable opportunity for both providing clarification to an existing debate and for filling in a knowledge gap within a new and evolving field of research.
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