Internet meme as meaningful discourse: towards a theory of multiparticipant popular online content Cover Image

Internet meme as meaningful discourse: towards a theory of multiparticipant popular online content
Internet meme as meaningful discourse: towards a theory of multiparticipant popular online content

Author(s): Jakub Nowak
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Media studies, Communication studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego
Keywords: Stuart Hall;internet meme;popular culture;communication theory;model of communication;internet

Summary/Abstract: Departing from the cultural studies semiotic approach, this chapter seeks to analytically reviews shifts in roles of media users given increasingly participation-oriented media tools. Drawing upon the re-interpretation of Stuart Hall’s seminal encoding/decoding model of communication, the author proposes a theoretical concept of internet meme perceived as multiparticipant popular online content combining modalities of traditional (vertical and cultutre industry-orginated) and new (horizontal and peer-reproduced) modalities of media production and consumption. The author problematizes this concept by recontextualizing several aspects of Hall’s theory: 1) theoretical appropration of four stages of Hall’s “chain of discourse” (messages’ production, circulation, use, reproduction) to a new – highly converged – media environment; 2) ambiguous status of internet meme’s authorship; 3) new contexts for analyzing internet memes, including: online pop-culture modalities, different strategies of “old” and “new” culture industries, Intellectual Property Rights policies.

  • Issue Year: 9/2016
  • Issue No: 16
  • Page Range: 73-89
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: English