{"title":"Do We Know Whether to Laugh or Cry? User Responses to @Ukraine’s Dark-humour Meme","authors":"Marta Dynel","doi":"10.1177/09732586241239908","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates international users’ reception of a dark-humour meme tweeted by Ukraine’s governmental Twitter (X) account on 7 December 2021 as part of its exceptional cultural practice of posting humorous memes. Tweeters’ responses to the ‘headaches meme’ are examined through a discourse-analytic lens. An emphasis is placed on the appreciation of the humour (emanating from the meme or its contextual embedding) and other forms of humour support demonstrated by its online indicators. The overarching aim is to distil and compare user reactions to the meme in two sociopolitical contexts—before and after the invasion of Ukraine that Russia mounted on 24 February 2022—based on two equal quote tweet samples. While the findings reveal a relative decrease in humour appreciation after the invasion, the same diversified reactions encompassing humour support or its lack and politically polarised discourses making for participatory digital warfare are detected in both parts of the dataset.","PeriodicalId":43888,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Creative Communications","volume":"214 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Creative Communications","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586241239908","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study investigates international users’ reception of a dark-humour meme tweeted by Ukraine’s governmental Twitter (X) account on 7 December 2021 as part of its exceptional cultural practice of posting humorous memes. Tweeters’ responses to the ‘headaches meme’ are examined through a discourse-analytic lens. An emphasis is placed on the appreciation of the humour (emanating from the meme or its contextual embedding) and other forms of humour support demonstrated by its online indicators. The overarching aim is to distil and compare user reactions to the meme in two sociopolitical contexts—before and after the invasion of Ukraine that Russia mounted on 24 February 2022—based on two equal quote tweet samples. While the findings reveal a relative decrease in humour appreciation after the invasion, the same diversified reactions encompassing humour support or its lack and politically polarised discourses making for participatory digital warfare are detected in both parts of the dataset.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Creative Communications promotes inquiry into contemporary communication issues within wider social, economic, marketing, cultural, technological and management contexts, and provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical and practical insights emerging from such inquiry. The journal encourages a new language of analysis for contemporary communications research and publishes articles dealing with innovative and alternate ways of doing research that push the frontiers of conceptual dialogue in communication theory and practice. The journal engages with a wide range of issues and themes in the areas of cultural studies, digital media, media studies, technoculture, marketing communication, organizational communication, communication management, mass and new media, and development communication, among others. JOCC is a double blind peer reviewed journal.