In this article, the author describes the phenomenon widely recognized as memes and describes its use and effects on the journalistic activity.
Key words: memes, communication, culture, journalism.
It is quite perplexing nowadays to participate in online communication without using the versatile and various multimedia functions provided by the digital platform. It can even be said that people, majorly the younger demographic, have been using the ability to produce and show the digital audio and photo materials to make a new and interesting step in communicational evolution. And at the epicenter of this development lies one of the more popularized terms today, the same one that has quite an obscure origin — memes.
Conceptually a meme is a term that was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976. A meme is a cultural phenomenon that can take any form of communicational material, activity or unit of information. This cultural unit carries an unspecified amount of information that would be understandable for a member of a specific social group or culture. Memes have existed from the dawn of communication and culture. This can be seen in the many exclusive but recognizable rituals, traditions and various ideas and mannerisms that belong to a plethora of unique cultures. What is also interesting these types of behaviors may not even be conscious and only need to be well recognized by the cultural group. In such format memes have existed for quite a while however with the introduction of digital platforms memes have undergone a big development becoming on of the key components for the new age of communication. While science as a whole and its specially designated field called Memetics is trying to understand the reasoning behind meme conception and its true origin, our society is quite busy utilizing memes in many if not soon all of the aspects of life as we know it. With the introduction of digital platforms and the Internet, memes have become an essential tool for effective communication, with its use being progressively more extensive in today’s society. What started out as a simple type of entertainment or source of fun for the internet users has become an almost tool in communication. Despite the digital platforms being primarily dominated by the surfers of the younger demographic the use of memes has ascended beyond informal interpersonal communication and has lent its services to a broader variety of users that include businesses, brands and various global types of media communication like journalism.
The core concept of memes has created a very perplexing situation for the public where memes are both used for the entertainment purposes but also used by some for furthering their goals which may be malicious in their intent. This can be seen in the article presented by Chris Peters and Stuart Allan who theorize about the “mimetic weaponization” [1] and its implied dangers. By that term they understand the use of memes to create narratives that follow a group’s agenda. While the authors describe a specific context of such weaponization of memes, with it being tightly connected to conflict between right- and left-aligned members of society and their unify or disorganize various movements, the core concept is something that should be definitely be discussed more thoroughly due to the implications of using something that is mainly focused on the entertainment of the public.
While everyone is responsible for what they view and whether they spread information about it, some of the internet users may unknowingly become an accomplice to other people’s malice. By misunderstanding a meme or perhaps viewing it as satire while other people will recognize it as an attempt at hostile behavior a person can be accused of being someone they are not.
This is especially true for the fields of conflict that are very controversial like politics or may encompass various troubling dilemmas like the gender inequality or racism. This is twice as important for journalists who operate in the digital field. As people who are supposed to follow the tenets that require them to be unbiased and neutral servants of the public collecting, processing and providing truthful information, journalists may find themselves in a position where they have dug themselves a grave in an attempt to be more relatable or interesting to a younger demographic of the audience. With the creation of digital platforms and the following integration of digital tools for content creation, journalism has transcended the usual requirements for the more traditional formats of media. To work in online journalism and especially in multimedia journalism one must be not only a competent journalist but also someone who is proficient with the tools provided by the online environment. With the immediate nature of online content online journalists are also forced to keep a steady stream of content. In addition to that the use of multimedia is highly advised to net a bigger number of viewers per post. Taking all of these factors that create a complex system that journalists find themselves in in account may show how easy it is to make a mistake by accidentally using a wrong type of meme. To avoid such mistakes a deep knowledge of Internet language and culture specifics is require which adds an extra layer of complexity on an already expansive list of necessities for a journalist. This, however, pays off when memes are utilized properly. As stated by G. Wolfram in their work, a person who is careful and specializes in memes in the field of journalism can enhance their work and truly engage with a population through the use of these cultural units [2].
In the modern world memes are also bleeding into the real world, breaking the digital limitations that once were thought unbreakable. The use of memes is facilitated by this especially since due to the encroaching and inevitable integration of digital technologies into every faucet of human life Internet culture slowly affects and transforms society just like globalization does. The newer generations, mainly Gen Y and Gen Z — the more tech savvy ones as well, are considered to be digital natives — a term used to describe those whose primary well of information consumption is directly connected to Internet resources. Because of this the use of memes, something that any digitally oriented consumer is very much familiar with, is not only considered acceptable but is highly encouraged.
With the introduction of AI and technological development being an unending process people get more and more creative ways to express themselves, using memes that are not bound to image-based format and now include audio and AI-related materials. People can put themselves and their photos in memes, can record and post themselves copying the behavior dictated by the memes and much more. With that in mind journalism has no other way than use these tools presented to it, to engage with the community that is active in this particular way.
However, this does not mean that the memes themselves are a piece of news or something that contributes to the aforementioned news informationally. It is a tool that supports the presented content and cannot be presented by itself. It is something that can be used to make sure that the statement delivers the intended emotional and informational context that would be hard to translate by nowadays standards of communication. The social functions of a meme are truly diverse and much bigger than one may anticipate, as such its use is almost necessary for some of the more satirical or entertainment-focused articles and news pieces [3].
To sum up, for contemporary journalism it is of utmost importance to create and provide content that is not only informative and is aligned at least in part with the main principles of journalistic activity but also corresponds and relates to the target audience at which the materials are aimed at. While the online environment is not wholly acceptable for journalistic activity due to the questionable objectivity of the endless sources of information on the Internet and the moral decay due to work complexity, the transformation of traditional journalism into online journalism and its subsequent convergence-based format in the shape of Multimedia Journalism makes people engaged in the field lean towards the use of the more informal strategies that include memes. While such cultural units are viewed as entertainment exclusively, it is still a tool that can be used to increased outreach, give better understanding of various informational pieces and even create a very emotional or context heavy news materials that are much better received by the digital natives and their peers. This is not without danger however as due to the silly or perhaps comedic nature of online memes; they can be used for malicious intent and people can become unknowing participants of such deplorable behavior. Hopefully the works analyzed in this article just as the article itself can be used to further the discussion and potential implications of meme use in the journalistic field.
References:
- Peters C., Allan S. Weaponizing memes: The journalistic mediation of visual politicization //Digital Journalism. — 2022. — Т. 10. — №. 2. — С. 217–229.
- Wolfram G. Journalism Embeds Social Media Language: The Use of Internet Memes in Political News: дис. — University of Applied Sciences.
- Щурина Ю. В., Харохорина М. Б. Интернет-мем как жанр и«ньюсмейкер» в современном медиапространстве //Медиалингвистика. — 2020. — Т. 7. — №. 2. — С. 263–275.
