12016-04-27T14:12:21-07:00Jake Blockdbd73352c3b0b3603a1e48690ed50368c821f5c392048Memes and their function within the political sphereplain2016-05-04T01:46:36-07:00Jake Blockdbd73352c3b0b3603a1e48690ed50368c821f5c3
Meme examples:
birdie sanders
bernie vs. hillary meme
hillary- youth votes
hillary- hot sauce, pandering to POC
ted cruz: zodiac killer
make donald drumpf again
Political Power of Memes
When Daniel was back at it again with the white vans, the meme spread like wildfire. It was shared and shared again across different media platforms, and the internet got creative. Variations of the meme became popular, and people began making their own memes referencing the original. There is even a rap song based on the short video, and the phrase, "Damn Daniel," became widely integrated into daily conversation. If a silly 30 second video can have this kind of an impact, imagine how influential viral meme culture can be when applied to something more relevant: politics.
Convergence Culture
Henry Jenkins describes convergence culture as a culture in which, "old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways." In a convergence culture, there is more information out there than any person can store in their head. Because of this, we talk with one another about the things that we have discovered. It opens up a dialogue, which perpetuates another type of information sharing. This kind of buzz is invaluable to the media industry, and for the marketing industry, convergence culture is a goldmine. Selling a brand is one way to utilize this buzz, and in terms of an election, the brand being sold is a presidential candidate.
Peers
Journalists
Real Time
Grassroots Intermediaries
Millenials
Why People Post Political Memes
Persuasion
Entertainment
Form Identities
"Each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives." (alter of convergence)