Covid-19 WhatsApp sticker memes in Oman

IF 2.4 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Discourse & Society Pub Date : 2022-08-31 DOI:10.1177/09579265221120479

Najma Al Zidjaly

引用次数: 1

Abstract

In this paper, the form and function of personalized Covid-19 WhatsApp sticker memes created and shared as social laments by citizens in Oman are examined. The compiled data set of 288 WhatsApp stickers was taken from a larger ethnographic project on Arabs and Covid-19. To collect and analyze the data, perspectives from visual semiotics were integrated with participatory and geosemiotic approaches to ground the stickers socially and globally. Six functions of Covid-19 WhatsApp stickers in Oman were identified: expressing political dissent, creating public signs, promoting religious agenda, indexing frustration, expressing levity, and constructing counter-discourse. Based on this analysis, it is suggested that by creating and using WhatsApp stickers during the 2020–2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Omani citizens positioned themselves as agentive participants in charge of their own lives, thus, solidifying a decade-long request for a new form of public-government relationship. The paper adds to research on Arabic digital communication and pandemic discourse.

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新冠肺炎WhatsApp贴纸模因在阿曼

本文研究了阿曼公民创建和分享的个性化Covid-19 WhatsApp表情包表情包的形式和功能。288张WhatsApp贴纸的汇编数据集来自一个更大的关于阿拉伯人和Covid-19的民族志项目。为了收集和分析数据，将视觉符号学的观点与参与性和地理符号学的方法相结合，以社会和全球为基础。确定了阿曼新冠肺炎WhatsApp贴纸的六项功能:表达政治异议、创建公共标志、促进宗教议程、索引挫败感、表达轻率和构建反对话语。基于这一分析，有人认为，通过在2020-2021年Covid-19大流行期间创建和使用WhatsApp贴纸，阿曼公民将自己定位为负责自己生活的代理参与者，从而巩固了长达十年的新形式的公共-政府关系的要求。本文对阿拉伯数字传播和流行病话语的研究进行了补充。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Discourse & Society Multiple-

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

4.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Discourse & Society is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal whose major aim is to publish outstanding research at the boundaries of discourse analysis and the social sciences. It focuses on explicit theory formation and analysis of the relationships between the structures of text, talk, language use, verbal interaction or communication, on the one hand, and societal, political or cultural micro- and macrostructures and cognitive social representations, on the other hand. That is, D&S studies society through discourse and discourse through an analysis of its socio-political and cultural functions or implications. Its contributions are based on advanced theory formation and methodologies of several disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.