EMS personnel tend to face higher burnout rates than those in similar professions, which makes them more likely to make mistakes, engage in safety-compromising behaviors, and get injured. This project examines humor used in the form of Internet memes as a coping mechanism. Internet memes are modifiable, replicable units of cultural transmission that are passed and gain influence through the Internet. I applied the Maslach Burnout Inventory to EMS related memes on the website Reddit. I found that memes that dealt with burnout typically referenced non-traumatic factors as being the source of burnout, and that these memes would often lead to conversations that allowed EMS personnel to share their experiences with one another. I concluded that internet memes can provide a way for EMS personnel to express their feelings anonymously and through a façade of humor, and can also let other people who may be going through similar experiences know that they are not alone.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:honors-1641 |
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| Creators | Drury, Caroline |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Undergraduate Honors Theses |
| Rights | Copyright by the authors., http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ |
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