Internet Memes and Political Participation

net Memes and policy-making Participation profit memes As a late chassis of policy-making federation1. Introduction The term meme has been emerged in various spheres in a few studies, and it has been discussed with some practice session search and cultural research (Hofstadter, 1985 Dawkins, 1976 Black much, 1999 Chesterman, 1997). As the basic unit of stopping point, meme plays an extremely authoritative fictitious character in the reproduction of culture. Given this orientation, some researchers started to getress and look for the relationship between meme and governmental relation, argue that meme has a absolute effect on the development of governmental. (Shifman, 2013, Milner, 2013). In the 2 world-class century, the rise of digital media has swopd the study dispersion ecological, as well as the port of thinking of deal. With the advance of neighborly media and digital technology, meme guess also need to adapt the young surround and instruction on the pr esent convergence for smart field. Accordingly, the new edge of meme study has come emerge, which is profit meme. In this net income age, a memes energy to reproduce and pass around is gradu in ally expanding, thus highlighted increasingly as the governing force in transmission media, and playing an increasingly important role in the normal do principal(prenominal) in equipment casualty of the news semi usual prospect and semi semipolitical communication. Whats more, websites like Know Your Meme, 4chan, Reddit and Tumblr argon meme manufactures which scram helped hoi polloi produce thousands of memes. The internet meme has raised the pace of sociable political aw atomic number 18ness and community building in cyberspace. Shifman (2013) defines that internet meme has treyfunctions in terms of political subdivisionicipation as forms of horizon orpolitical advocacy, as grassroots save and as modes of t angiotensin-converting enzyme and mandiscussion. This musical composition builds on existing intimacy in the fields of internetmeme, ground on Shifmans work and combines with others studies to demonstratethat internet meme is a new form of political piece of musicicipation. At the equal succession,this report leave illustrate it from three aspects as a persuasion way in preference, as a resistance of throng ( order action) and as a public address of political issues.BodyWhat is a meme?The definition of memein The Oxford English Dictionary is an element of culture that may beconsidered to be passed on by non-genetic means, especially imitation. The termmeme was created by Dawkins in his record The selfish Gene in 1976, when he triedto explain the culture exploitation. He defined it as small units of culture thatspread from somebody to person by facsimileing or imitation (Dawkins, 1989). Inaddition, he analogized meme with biological gene, considered that meme alsoevolved through coping(imitating), variating and selecting, like gene transmitsits genetic knowledge to the next contemporaries. A clear difference betweenthese two is that genes are the genetic operators of biology, while meme is thederivative of culture. Besides, gene propagates through heredity, a sensualprocess to replicate yet meme through imitating, which is a mental process. Inhis work, he indicated that meme has three characters 1) Heredity, the processof memes diffusion is heredity. For example, when one piety or belief ispropagating to others, the religion as a meme is acquired by battalion and copiedto their mind and continuing passed along to believers. 2) Variation, the kernels of meme by imitated are non the same, they could be changed. Forinstance, when people telling a story to others they will add or delete somedetails, which results in variation. 3) Selection, the major power of diffusion isvarying from different memes, some are easy to spread while some are non, theyare competing when being propagating, which is like the natural selection inbiologic theory (Dawkins, 1989). Despite some researcherscriticized that Dawkins has limited the culture in the sphere of biologic andsimplified human behavior later, it open firenot be unattended that his efforts on theresearch of meme, which accentuates the realization of cultural gene. Next,Douglas Hofstadter put forwarded a new interdisciplinary national Memetics in1985. This subject is based on the status of Darwinian evolution to studythe content of the mind, aiming to explore the hearty evolution model ofcultural information transmission (Hofstadter, 1985). Since then, the memeconcept has been discussed and accepted by various of subject phycology,physiology, anthropology,linguistics and so on. For instance, DanielDennett, an Ameri stern philosophy who concur with the concept of meme, andapplied it into his book Consciousness Explained and Darwins DangerousIdea to run into the mechanism of spiritual evolution (Vasiliki, 2014). Furthermore,Finland l inguists and translation theorists Andrew Chesterman, combined memewith the British philosopher Karl fall outpers idea about the schema of knowledgeevolution, established the translation theory framework of the system by adescriptive study on the translation standard and strategies (Chesterman, 1997).In 1999, Susan Blackmore (1999) considered meme as an independent replicationfactor in her book The Meme Machine, suggested that whatever the form ofmemetic information is, it could be beted as meme when it potful be copied byimitate.Based on the previous(prenominal) studies, this paperadopts Shifmans (2013) idea and apply it to the analyze. She describes thememe constituted with two principles 1) look at diffused units asincorporating several memetic dimensions namely, several aspects that peoplemay imitate 2) understanding memes not as single entities that propagate well,but as groups of content units with common characteristics. 2.2 What is an internet meme?Meme has been widelya ccepted and applied to several subjects which has mentioned before, but itonly gets warinesss of mass media researchers until 21 centuries (Davison,2012). According to Shifman (2013), she defines an meshwork meme as 1) a groupof digital items overlap common characteristics of content, form, and/orstance 2) that were created with awareness of each other and 3) werecirculated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users. customaryly,in the digital media era, the advancement of Internet and social networksenable people to acquire more information and accelerate the informationexchange. With the advent of web2.0 and platformlization, meme is activelyinvolved in the process of information dissemination, in terms of longevity,fecundity, and copy fidelity have been enhanced through internet, which regardas the three basic properties that help meme to spread success widey. Forlongevity, it is attributed to numerous archives, which can store dataindefinitely not rely on m emory. For copy fidelity, it mainly because thedigitization allows lossless information transfer compared to traditionalmedia. For fecundity, out-of-pocket to the infrastructure, it can achieve the swiftdiffusion of any given sum to numerous nodes. These facilitates thecreation and exchange of user-generate-consent, which emerges affair(Shifman, 2013). Apart from this, easier access to the Internet enables peopleto receive mounts of information every day, in comparison to the limitedinformation acquiring approaches in the past. Also, the speed of transmissionis no longstanding limited by the movement of individuals. Hence, it is necessary to paymore direction on internet meme, exploring its role on constructing parcel outd valuesin contemporary digital cultures. As Shifman (2013) claimed, the internetmeme has three properties in the web2.0 1) A gradual elongation fromindividuals to society. In other words, memes could bring about the mindsets, formsof behavior, and actions o f social groups. quite a little can easier sharing andcommunicating in digital era, which facilitates the process of ventilation memesfrom person to society 2) Reproduction via copying and imitation. In thedigital world, people can spread content by forwarding, linking, or copying, theycan use some software like Photoshop and application like Snapseed to imitateand remixing rather of reproducing as well and 3) Diffusion through contender and selection. The internet magnifies the competition and selectionof meme. On the one hand, it allows researchers collect data and track theprocess of meme evolution. On the other hand, it offers users an opportunity tounderstanding and knowing the preference of election relating to meme diffusion (Davison,2012). It is always mentions viral when bubblesabout internet memes, their differences and similarities are the major parts ofmeme research. This paper does not go in bring forward with details about this, butindicates the mainly difference between viral and internet meme is that viralis consisted of single units while internet meme is a collection of text. In order to better analyzing, this paperfocus on the exposures form of internet memes, takes some images as example toillustrates the idea. Based on the studies of Knobel, Lankshear (2007) andKuipers (2005), internet memes can be divided into two categories recycledimages and macros images. Recycled images have a scout which build bynumerous imitations and stable images which include originalcontent and are passed along with transformation or not, as presented in insert1 and grade 2. Macros images usually constitute with a single image overlaidwith a white text written in capitals and express the humourousal note, aspresented in Figure1.3 and Figure1.4. Figure.1 and Figure.2 Figure.3 and Figure. 4 2.3 Internet memes as a new form of political participationIn recent years, internet meme hasbeen invariably evolving into the political participation. This appea red to beattributed to the digital media. First it offers the opportunities for peopleto become the subject of expression, and then reducing the cost of politicalparticipation, especially for the young generation who are less likely toengaged in political activities (Anduiza, 2012). Second, public and politicalevents are more likely to be exaggerated than in the past with rapid spread inthe internet. Last, the so-called image politics according to Wilson (2000),image images have more vitality and tension than words. Since the visualimpact has more strong effects on emotion and could palliate the time for readingtoo much words, it is extremely easy to be used to participate in discussingpolitical issues, especially in small areas. For this reason, theexaggerated effects and interesting composition of meme makes its transmissionhave coercive appeal, which makes the combination of both of them play the roleof two-way gain. in that respectfore, internet meme has make the bridge b etween citizensand political, as a new way to deconstruct by the form of image with humor togains serious political, build a unique participate system (Hristova, 2014). This paperclassified this political participation into three sub-items in terms offacilitates political participation according to Shifmans work 1) As a persuasionway in election 2) As a resistance of people (collection action) and 3) As apublic discourse. Following will combining cases to analyze these threefunctions (Shifman, 2013).2.2.1 As a persuasive way in electionSocial media allows users to publishtheir opinions or ideas so that their friends, family, and strangers can readthese posts and comments back. And it is has been demonstrated that people aremore likely to believe in their friends and family, which makes the onlineideas become more convincible (Shifman, 2013). As a consequence, internet memethrough social media could influence people for their mental cognition,behavior patterns and guide their reali zation (Tay,2015). As politics move to the Internet where more andmore voters get their news and information with the trend of digitaltechnology. The politicians and their companies start to consider takingadvantage of internet meme to create colossal political profile with theirpersonalities and campaign slogans. In this way, enabled mobilizing votersoutside of official political discourses. A few studies consider politicianswho appear cool in the eye of everyday citizens to be rare successes (Tay,2015)The 2008 American presidential electionis cognise for being the first modern Internet campaign, Shifman (2013) choosesthe Obama Girl video as an example of memes as political persuasion, explainsthat the video become widely frequent due to it just focus on a praise of Obamanot talks about specific political issues. Here, this paper uses The Hope Memein 2008 American election as an example to analyze. This meme is the depictionof Barack Obama by artificer Shepard Fairey (Figure 5 ), it has thousands ofreplications and then a vast number of users participated in creating their ownreplications (Figure 6 and Figure 7). This meme portrayed Obama as the idealcandidate and introducing a fancy for the country, which triggered peoplesapproval (Foster, 2014). Subsequently, Obamas supporters enjoying creating newversions of the Hope Meme itself to show their stance (Seiffert, 2017). Withthe propagation of the hope meme, a climbing mount of people acknowledge the behavior of Obama even they do not participate in, they can see the images insocial media through their friends or families. Moreover, Obamas campaignposted a LOLcat a few days before the 2012 election (Figure 8) to call onpeople to vote. This meme combing with the internet culture, the lol cultureand cute cat, make people perceived as Obama is proximity to the ordinarypeople. The fact is, Obama is a touristy figure referred to in Internet memes,involved discussions and supportive commentaries (Tay, 2015).Fi gure.5 and Figure. 6 Figure.7 and Figure. 8 To give another example is the 2012American election, between Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton. On April 4, a memecontaining President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton postedon a Tumblr blog. It imagines an exchange between them, and Obama askingwhatchu doing?, she responds, Running the world (Figure 9). In this image,Obama is dissimulation down while reading, and seems relaxed, Clinton has a solemnexpression, and is busy with work. The post got a lot of attention and receivedthousands of notes. Clinton becomes a synonym of respectability, and a facsimile of female empowerment. Since then, her supporters involving intothis internet meme and imitate their own picture by change the text or content.(Figure 10 and Figure 11). The meme became a major part of Hillary Clintonspositive cultural revival as a political figure, which was already seen asparticularly powerful in the 2016 presidential campaign. This has made her avia ble candidate (Tay, 2015). Figures 9, 10 and 111 These examples have illustrated the useof internet memes as a persuasion way referred to political participation. Asan active social software, internet memes have a place in the politicalexpression of new media with the linking, forwarding and imitating, whichincreased the exposure of political figures. In the presidential election,candidates in the media show the image of display, and in the narration partis partly deciding the success or failure of his election (Foster, 2014).Politics in the media society is becoming more and more a performance, an actof creating an image. 2.3.2 As a resistance of people (collection action)Indeed, most of political memes are largely resistant to nature, and as weve seen, resistance itself is a critical mass mobilization. Shifman (2013) defines one function of memes is as grass-roots action with the example carry Wall lane online movement. The Pepper Spray Cop which shows a police officer sprin kle protesters with pepper spray. The We are the 99%, becomes one of the main visual markers of the on-the-ground Occupy Movement after it spread quickly online. They serve as a call to action for the protest to continue. Shifman indicates that the power of organization is declining, instead being replaced by massive, mobile social networks, which is collective action (Milner2013). The background of the maturation collective action cannot be separated from the remarkable rise of internet memes. First, the threshold is low and thither is no need for technological learning to express and participate. Besides, image meme helps these protests go deeper with the visual effects. The most important affaire is that internet meme allows the citizens to participate in collective action and at the same time can retain their individuality, since one of the character of meme is alter (Anduiza, 2012). There are several studieshas worked on the Occupy Wall Street, this paper will apply the coll ectiveaction in Facebook between chinaware mainland and mainland mainland China in 2016 as a case study.This is the first internet meme and political participation refer to collectiveaction have been combined in public view in China. In January, Ziyu Zhou, amember of the second Korean womens group, was accused by the artist An Huangabout Taiwans independence on Weibo, leading to a wave of public opinionagainst Ziyu Zhou. As the resultant continued to heat up, then Ziyu Zhou issueda video on Facebook to apologize for the previous uproar. Celebrity Gengxin Linforwarded the apology to video, and said apologized too shortly anddidnt have time to memorize the manuscript, which caused Taiwanesenetizens and Chinese netizens started a deal in Lins Facebook. A few daysafter, it is said that 20 billion Chinese young people have started acollective action to Facebook of Taiwans three media homepage. Noncitizenstake internet meme as main expression, showed a high point of organization, t oresist the independence of Taiwan (Tang, 2016).Asshowed in Figure 12, Figure 13 and Figure 14, these memes are from the Chinamainland, people try to use the beautiful scenes from China mainland and someironic words to resist the supportive of independence of Taiwan. The contentsof these meme are from traditional Chinese slogans, events with Chinesecharacteristics and political propaganda themes. On the one hand, it evokes thevalue recognition of people. On the other hand, they combined with familiarthings of public, which will have a wideer influence on transmission. The mostimportant thing is, there are millions of people participate in this action,and post millions of images on Facebook, the homepage was full of images whichis powerful and spectacular. Figure.12 invite Taiwan people to enjoy the beautiful China mainland scene. Figure.13 Follow me Taiwan has been Chinas territory since ancient times. You dont know its okay. Figure. 14 Dont talk with a picture These internet me mesfrom the mass production by organizing, and get across the emotional expression inthe images, aim to use it to gain the attention occupation and presentspeoples political stance of resist. According to sharing and remixing,transfer it into collective action, reflects the ability to participate innarrative formulation and civic organization. Therefore, memes can be used asa peter of political participation in terms of turn the public opinionfragmentation into collective action (Tang, 2016).2.3.3 As a public discourse of political issuesSocial media is considered to be moreeffective in terms of information diffusion comparison to traditional media, itexpands the source of information and knowledge for people. People not only arethe receiver of the political information in network environment, they also area political gist of reproducing and disseminator, which means everyone islikely to be the news publishers, and likely to be receiving information. The advantages of digital me dia including openness,virtualization, interactivity and timeliness build a great environment for thepublic discourse, and serving people freely communicate and express theiropinions. Therefore, net citizens are express emotion on discuss politic issues throughdigital media. The richness, floating and doubt of meme allow everyonerevolve around the image to construct the legal fashioning and compete fortheir statements, thus it is easy to be used to participate in discuss sensitivepolitical issues (Hristova, 2014). They are now been a part of our internet culture,participating in a larger media and material ecosystem that helps shape thepolitical identity and political union. Meme could be a catalyst for politicaldiscussion (Shifman, 2013). Compared to the pastpeople have to talk or bring through articles to show their political stance while nowthey just can use an image. Like the Pepe the Frog, it becomes a Nazi Trumpsupporter and Alt-Right symbol (Figure 15). It attracts not o nly peoplesattention, but also political discussions by its powerful visual impact. Somenotable examples are The 2015 General election of United Kingdom, the image ofeating of candidate Miliband, which is different from his appearance onnewspapers, evokes a vast number of imitation of people with jeering andridicule (Figure 16). After that, many politicians actively to follow thetrend, post out their own eating images to get attention and discussion. Thismeme is similar to the Sihao Bai in 2014, the mayor of New York city. He used aknife and fork in an undisciplined manner in an image (Figure 17), which made peoplequestioned his ability to govern because he has a more powerful appearance innewspaper than this image. Back to the Occupy Wall Street case, the Weare the 99% meme. It is widely popular in Facebook and has numerousreplicators. At first, most of them are from the 99% people to support withfixed images, annotation or remix (Figure 18). Gradually, the 1% peopleparticipate i n and post their own images with the text value me or redistribute(Figure 19). At the same time, they got mounted of comments along with (Milner,2013). This meme engages in multiple discussions and arguments on Facebook.Figure 15Figure 16Figure 17Figure 18Figure 19With the propagationcharacteristics of memes, public discourse is totally different than the past.The increasing of involved hotspot issues duration, degree of attention andtransformation mechanism, a serial of crisis involved in, the more complexissues appear at the same time including and the increase of average time ofthe single issue are catalyzing the public discourse with political issues indigital era. In another way, internet memes as apolitical catharsis, it represents a strong demand of citizens for politicalparticipation. Significantly, when people engaged in this discussion ratherthan sharing or forwarding, it has more powerful since it empowers citizens toshare their opinions of political stances (Shifman, 2 013).3. ConclusionIn the era of media, the process ofpolitical participation can be well deserved to internet meme, which from thebottom to top, allows people to have the chance to get involved in politicalactivities. The three basic characters of meme including heredity, variationand selection have been enhanced in digital media, and that is the major reasonwhy the internet meme could leave a great influence on political participation.From one hand, internet meme as the persuasion way mainly reflected on thepolitical elections, help politicians to build positive image thus get votersapproval. From another hand, it allows ordinary people to resist through masteryof dominance on the spread of images, not only can modify the content of thememe, also can undertake production and innovation. Besides, it offers a newway for net citizens to seek affirmation and self-expression in political communities.The future study of internet meme could focus on the effects, like how to measure the ef fects of internet memes on elections or collective action. As a new way to participate in politics, internet meme has its own advantages and it is deserved to study in the future.ReferencesAnduiza, E., Jensen, M.J. and Jorba L., eds. (2012). Digital Media and political Engagement Worldwide A Comparative Study. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.Blackmore, S. (1999).The Meme Machine, New York OxfordUniversity Press Inc.Chesterman, A. (1997).Memes of translation. 1sted. Amsterdam J. Benjamins.Davison, P. (2012).The Language of Internet Memes.Dawkins, R. (1976).The selfish gene. New YorkOxford University Press Inc., pp.189-202.Foster, B. J. (2014). Its all in a meme a contentanalysis of memes posted to 2012 presidential election facebookpages.Dissertations & Theses Gradworks.Hofstadter, D. 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