As social media has emerged to become a key site for contemporary communications and cultural production, the internet meme has penetrated every level of social networking online. Albeit being a global phenomenon with pervasive discursive power in a number of fields ranging from humour to international politics and cyber warfare, comparatively little research has been made into how internet memes work on the discursive level of identity formation and their influence on the formation of internet-based social movements. Using Reddit stock market anarchists r/WallStreetBets as case study, this thesis will use Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze how internet memes work on the level of socio-political formations and how their function can be understood in relation to entropic social environments online. This thesis investigates how internet memes are used as a tool for creation of motifs for action, identity markers, connective action, and social narrativization within an ambivalent social movement online. Introducing the novel term ”memetic discourse” as a way to understand memes as transferable units of memetically programmed content, this study shows the potential of memes to act as effective yet unstable modes of communication within networked environments.

Con la creciente expansión de las redes sociales, llegando hasta los lugares más remotos, la mayoría de las personas dedica una gran parte de su día navegando en estas plataformas y compartiendo mensajes que posteriormente se viralizan. Es así que en la actualidad muchas instituciones, como la iglesia, han tenido que adaptarse a las nuevas tendencias buscando la forma de hacer llegar sus mensajes por estos medios y encontrando en ellos un canal rápido y eficaz para llegar a más personas. El presente trabajo tiene como finalidad analizar el contenido compartido por dos páginas de memes cristianos: Humor Cristiano en Facebook y Somos Vida en Instagram. Asimismo, la interacción de los usuarios y su reacción ante dichas publicaciones. Para ello se seleccionarán los posts publicados por las dos páginas durante los primeros 15 días de la cuarentena abarcando desde el 16 de marzo hasta el 31 del mismo mes para realizar un análisis comparativo y comprender como el evangelio puede llegar a los creyentes y no creyentes por este medio. / With the increasing expansion of social networks, reaching the most remote places, most people spend a large part of their day browsing these platforms and sharing messages that later go viral. Thus, today many institutions, such as the church, have had to adapt to new trends, looking for ways to get their messages across through these means and finding in them a fast and effective channel to reach more people. The purpose of this work is to analyze the content shared by two pages of Christian memes: Humor Cristiano on Facebook and Somos Vida on Instagram. Also, the interaction of users and their reaction to such publications. For this, the posts published by the two pages during the first 15 days of the quarantine will be selected, covering from March 16 to the 31 of the same month to carry out a comparative analysis and understand how the gospel can reach believers and non-believers by this medium. / Trabajo de investigación

A rising problem exists regarding the ownership of memes. This research proposes a solution consisting of an IT artefact that solves this problem by utilising design science research in combination with affordance theory and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This artefact is designed by identifying the problem areas and creating affordances that guide the design process, using the design science research methodology by Peffers et al. (2007). The artefact is evaluated and considered a potential solution to the problem with meme ownership. The affordances are connected to the designed features and offer contributions in the form of a novel artefact and documented design processes. By using affordance theory as a lens to help the design, further research can build upon this idea and expand research by combining design science with affordances. The practical implementation of NFTs gives insights into how NFTs can be applied in the case of tokenising digital goods and allows people without knowledge of blockchains to participate.

El sistema educativo actual centra sus enseñanzas en la verbalidad y el pensamiento lógico-lineal. Diversos estudios demuestran que para mejorar el aprendizaje en los jóvenes es necesario estimular ambos hemisferios del cerebro. El hemisferio derecho se caracteriza por dominar el pensamiento visual e históricamente los seres humanos siempre hemos tenido la necesidad de expresarnos de esta manera. Gracias al avance de la tecnología, surgen los memes, que representan una gran parte del modo de comunicación de la juventud. Esta investigación pretende conocer las percepciones de los docentes con respecto al uso educativo que pueden tener los memes. Este será un estudio cualitativo con entrevistas a profesores de las distintas facultades de la Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas. Como posible resultado se espera que los docentes sean conscientes de la evolución de la evolución en las metodologías de enseñanza debido al cambio generacional producido por la llegada de las nuevas tecnologías / The current educational system focuses its teachings on verbality and linear-logical thinking. Various studies show that to improve learning in young people it is necessary to stimulate both hemispheres of the brain. The right hemisphere is characterized by dominating visual thought and historically human beings have always had the need to express ourselves in this way. Today, thanks to the advancement of technology, memes emerge, which represent a large part of the communication mode of youth. This research aims to know the perceptions of teachers regarding the educational use that memes may have. This will be a qualitative study with interviews with professors from the different faculties of the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences. As a possible result, it is expected that teachers are aware of the evolution of the evolution in teaching methodologies due to the generational change produced by the arrival of new technologies. / Trabajo de investigación

Nostalgia for the Soviet past has been relevant for more than three decades since the demise of the USSR in 1991. The first scholars who studied this phenomenon believed that it related to backward Soviet mentality typical of the old generations. However, with the passage of time it has become clear that young people also not only express interest in the Soviet legacy, but many of them clearly state that they have nostalgia for the USSR. Here, we encounter an intriguing question: can we contend that nostalgia may be provoked by the live experience only, or it can be a longing for the unexperienced past? Nowadays, there are many online nostalgic Russian-speaking communities that provide rich material for studying post-Soviet nostalgia. But Russian language should not be confused with “Russianness”. Moreover, as we go deeper into this topic, we understand that those people who are nostalgic for the USSR, experience longing for different aspects of the Soviet life, depending on their ethnic belonging. This study addresses the difference between Russians who long for the grandeur of the Soviet Union which was the most powerful and effective embodiment of the Russian empire, and the representatives of other nationalities who have another perspective on their Soviet past. This thesis deals a lot with the issue of values, because, as it is shown in the research, longing for socialism is not a matter of age, but rather a matter of values. The most essential point which is recalled by many nostalgic persons is aspiration for the future. Now Russia and other post-Soviet countries do not have a clear plan for the future, while the USSR provided its population with a goal for future development. On the other hand, many nostalgic subjects admit, that a unique spirituality that was embedded in Soviet life is lost. It is another paradox, because the Soviet state was atheist, and now in Russia and other former Soviet republics, religion plays a significant role, however, the decrease of morals in comparison to Soviet times is apparent. Therefore, this thesis discusses compatibility of Communist (socialist) values and religion. Many nostalgic subjects feel that the USSR was a bastion of science and technological advancement in comparison to the backward obscurantist Russia of today. They mourn the downfall of the USSR as a failed project of modernity. This is another important topic that is addressed in the thesis. This study is based on online ethnographies of a few nostalgic communities on three Russian-speaking internet platforms: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and Facebook. Initially, the focus of the study was on a group level of analysis, but the most valuable portion of this project turned out to be interviews conducted with individual participants of the studied communities. The research participants were from the following countries: Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russian and Ukraine. The task of this research was to understand the nature of their nostalgia and to reveal their visions of the to-be-restored USSR. Depending on their worldviews (socialist/ non-socialist, nationalist/internationalist) the research participants provided very different and instructive pictures of this new potential unity which the researcher approached from the perspective of Benedict Anderson’s theory on imagined communities.

Les médias sociaux sont devenus un élément incontournable des sociétés occidentales (et de plus en plus dans les autres régions du monde). Plusieurs études se sont intéressées à leurs impacts et ont trouvé qu’ils peuvent avoir une influence modeste, mais significative sur les attitudes et comportements politiques des citoyens. Sur ces plateformes sociales, les utilisateurs ont adopté divers moyens de communication notamment le mème (« Internet meme »). Ce sont des images tirées de la culture populaire agrémentées de texte qui ont comme particularité de pouvoir être imitées ou remixées et de se propager de manière virale sur le web. Bien que ces créations soient habituellement légères et humoristiques, elles sont aussi souvent utilisées par les citoyens et parfois par des acteurs politiques afin de s’exprimer politiquement. En effet, les recherches antérieures soulignent que les mèmes politiques peuvent être le reflet de l’opinion politique de certains groupes. En s’inspirant de la littérature sur l’influence des médias sur le comportement politique et de la psychologique politique, ce mémoire avance que ces images peuvent avoir un impact sur l’idéologie et les sentiments intergroupes. Pour vérifier cette affirmation, ce mémoire utilise une expérience aléatoire contrôlée, directement sur Facebook. Avec cette méthode, l’analyse révèle que les effets sont en général très limités. Cependant, elle démontre que les mèmes politiques peuvent contribuer à la polarisation des opinions, notamment chez les individus qui sont attachés à un parti politique. / Social media have become a central part of western societies (and more and more in other world regions). Many studies have examined the link between social media and political behaviours and attitudes, and have found modest but significant impacts. On social platforms, users have adopted many communication styles, notably, the Internet meme. These are images drawn from popular culture with original text which have the property of being imitated or remixed and spread virally on the web. Usually, those creations consist of light humour, but they can be used by citizens and sometimes political actors to express political ideas. Recent research has shown that political memes can reflect the opinions of certain groups in society. Drawing on the literature in political behaviour and political psychology, this thesis argues that political memes can have a potent effect on ideology and intergroup feelings. To assess this claim, this thesis employs a randomized experiment, directly on Facebook. With this method, the analysis reveals that political memes generally have a limited impact. Nonetheless, it shows that memes can contribute to attitude polarization, notably among those who feel close to a political party.

Modern protest movements rely on digital activism on social media, which serves as a conduit for mobilization. In the social media landscape, internet memes have emerged as a popular practice of expressing political protest. Although it is known that social media facilitates mobilization, researchers have neglected how distinct types of content affect mobilization. Moreover, research regarding users’ perspectives on mobilization through memes is lacking. To close these research gaps, this study investigates memes in the context of climate protest mobilization. Based on the four-step model of mobilization, a survey of users who create and share memes related to the Fridays for Future movement on social media (N = 325) revealed that the prosumption of climate crisis memes increases users’ issue involvement and strengthens their online networks. These factors serve as crucial mediators in the relationship between users’ prosumption of climate crisis memes and political participation. The results suggest that mobilization through memes is effective at raising awareness of political issues and strengthening online discussion networks, which means that it has strategic potential for protest movements. By looking at memes from the perspective of their creators and examining a specific type of social media content, this study contributes to the literature on digital mobilization.

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