Framing Covid-19 through memes: a way for young people to shape the narrative in Austria

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic and the intensified digitalization of life-worlds has especially affected younger generations, also in Austria. In this paper, we approach digital practices of 43 young adults between 16 and 18 years in a frame-analytical perspective to understand forms of politicization during the Covid-19 pandemic. We analyze memes in order to make sense of youth's life-worlds during the pandemic. The memes were created by youth as a result of a workshop series with the researchers. Our research shows that memes have provided a means for engaging and dealing digitally and emotionally with Covid-19-related problems. We show that the respective youth address educational, social and democratic issues by problematizing 'homeschooling as overburdening', a 'lack of planning' and 'social divisions'. Moreover, meme-creation offers a perspective on how youth express and create a 'sense of community' through digital practices. During the pandemic youth have increasingly come to understand and represent themselves as a group with shared experiences in digital space, going along with a positioning as 'younger generation' vis-a-vis older generations. We argue that the fact that the pandemic has affected youth heavily and the fact that they do not see their issues and needs represented by political representatives or media shows the potential and limits of digital spaces for younger generations to connect (politically). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)