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DISSERTATION THE AFFECT AND EFFECT OF INTERNET MEMES: ASSESSING PERCEPTIONS AND INFLUENCE OF ONLINE USER-GENERATED POLITICAL DISCOURSE AS MEDIA Submitted by Heidi E. Huntington Department of Journalism and Media Communication In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Summer 2017 Doctoral Committee: Advisor: Rosa Mikeal Martey Ashley A. Anderson Carl R. Burgchardt Marilee Long David W. McIvor Copyright by Heidi E. Huntington 2017 All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT THE AFFECT AND EFFECT OF INTERNET MEMES: ASSESSING PERCEPTIONS AND INFLUENCE OF ONLINE USER-GENERATED POLITICAL DISCOURSE AS MEDIA In our modern media environment characterized by participatory media culture, political internet memes have become a tool for citizens seeking to participate actively and discursively in a digital public sphere. Although memes have been examined as visual rhetoric and discursive participation, such political memes’ effects on viewers are unclear. This study responds to calls for research into effects of internet memes. Specifically, this work represents early, foundational research to quantitatively establish some media effects of internet memes as a form of political, user-generated media. This study focuses on memes’ influence on affect, as well as perceptions of internet memes’ persuasiveness to look for evidence of motivated reasoning in consuming political memes. To establish effects of viewing political memes, an online, post-test only, quasi- experimental design was employed to test the relationships between viewing political internet memes, affect, and perceived persuasiveness of memes. To better attribute results to specific genres (e.g. political vs. non-political) and attributes of memes (i.e., the role of images), the main study (N = 633) was comprised of five experimental conditions – to view either liberal political memes, conservative political memes, text-only versions of the liberal memes, text-only versions of the conservative memes, or non-political memes – with a sixth comparison group, who did not view any stimuli at all. Before running the main study, a pilot study (N = 133) was conducted to determine which memes to use as the stimuli in the main study, based on participants’ ratings of the memes’ political stances and similarity to their text-only versions. ii Results indicate that political internet memes produce different effects on viewers than non-political internet memes, and that political memes are subject to motivated reasoning in viewers’ perceptions of memes’ persuasiveness. Specifically, viewing political internet memes resulted in more feelings of aversion than did viewing non-political memes, and political internet memes were rated as less effective as messages and their arguments were scrutinized more than were non-political memes. However, non-political memes were significantly discounted as simple jokes more than were political memes. This suggests that participants understood political memes as attempts at conveying arguments beyond mere jokes, even if they were unconvinced regarding memes’ effectiveness for doing so. Additionally, participants whose own political ideology matched that of the political memes they saw, as well as those who stated they agreed with the ideas presented by the memes, rated the memes as being more effective as messages and engaged in less argument scrutiny than did participants whose ideology differed from that of the memes, or than those who disagreed with the memes. This finding indicates that memes are subject to processes of motivated reasoning, specifically selective judgment and selective perception. Political memes’ visuals, or lack thereof, did not play a significant role in these differences. Finding the memes to be funny, affinity for political humor, and participants’ meme use moderated some of these outcomes. The results of this study suggest that political internet memes are a distinct internet meme genre, with characteristics operating in line with other humorous political media, and should be studied for effects separately or as distinguished from non-political memes. The results of this study also indicate that user-generated media like political internet memes are an important influence in today’s media environment, and have implications for other forms of political outcomes, including concerns about opinion polarization, civic discourse, and the public sphere. iii The study presents one method for conducting quantitative research with internet memes, including generating a sample from existing internet memes, and for considering political memes’ effects as media. Suggestions for future research building on this work are offered. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As with all dissertations, while completing this project often felt like a solitary endeavor, it would not exist without the support of many colleagues, friends, and family. To my advisor, Rosa Mikeal Martey: Thank you for pushing me to think harder and to reach for more, and for knowing I could, even when sometimes I wasn’t as certain. Your thoughts and wisdom helped shape this project to be all it could, and have made me a better scholar. Thank you for your time, advice, and devotion to this project, and for agreeing that memes are important to study. I promise to pay it forward. To the members of my committee: Ashley Anderson, Carl Burgchardt, Marilee Long, and David McIvor: Thank you all for your time and commitment to this project, and for your expertise and wisdom shared in classroom discussions and in your office hours. Your advice and suggestions were invaluable to helping me develop the ideas contained here, and I will carry your insights with me as I go. Special thanks to Emily Johnson and Danielle Stomberg for opening your classrooms for this project, and to Linnea Sudduth Ward for the long-distance Google chats about process, theory, and everything in between. Rhema Zlaten, you offered friendship and a much-needed listening ear. Thank you. Hui Zhang, thanks for acting as a sounding board for ideas taking shape. Joanne Littlefield for helping me move and more. To the other members of my cohort, classmates, and JMC faculty from whom I have had the opportunity to learn: Thank you for your support and friendship over the years. I know our discussions have helped hone my thinking about memes, media, and more. I did much of the final writing of this dissertation in coffee shops, where I probably spent more time taking up table space than the caffeinated drinks I bought were worth. If you’re v looking for something delicious and relatively inexpensive to drink, I recommend the lavender iced tea at Ziggi’s Coffee. Kori and Denise at A. C. took good care of my son, freeing my mind to think and write. Dad, thanks for chatting about statistics software and sending links of interest. You’ve been a cheerleader of this project from the beginning. My mother taught me to read, and in so doing instilled in me a love of learning that started me down the path that led me here. She likes to tell a story of how at 4 years old I repeatedly told her, “I want to go to shhchool.” (I had trouble pronouncing the word, but I knew where I wanted to be.) I have finally satisfied the desire to attend school, but I will never get over the love of being around those who are learning, nor the desire to keep learning. Thanks, Mom. Alan, you have been my partner through it all. Thanks for listening even when you didn’t understand what I was talking about, and for all the loads of laundry done and dinners cooked. Most of all, thanks for believing in me. Samuel, I once thought my greatest adventure was going to be completing this project. Instead it turned out to be you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ x 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Memes as Influential Political Communication .................................................................. 4 1.2 Study Approach ................................................................................................................ 10 1.3 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 10 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Media and Politics............................................................................................................. 12 2.2 Internet Memes: Definition and Conceptualization .......................................................... 15 2.3 The Public Sphere: Citizens’ Discourse and Participation ............................................... 23 2.4 Political Entertainment: Information and Influence ......................................................... 32 2.5 Consuming Internet Memes: Decoding the Argument ....................................................
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