The (de)-politicization of Internet memes in Chinese national youth propaganda campaign

ABSTRACTVisual political communication in the social media sphere is increasingly valuable for its ability to more effectively persuade viewers in this increasingly cluttered media landscape. Using multi-model discourse analysis and following the theoretical framework of Everyday Politics, this study focuses on a random sample (N = 200) of user-generated Internet memes from Chinese national youth propaganda campaign Youth Study. In addition, the author observed the sharing and dissemination of these memes in online public discussions. The findings reveal that young participants maintain a varying distance from politics. They employ strategies such as dark humor, hyperbole, contrast, and appropriation of pop culture to portray two key roles – the charming, brilliant followers and the abandoned, hunted breakers, and to construct four main scenarios-cute threat, humble beg, funny politics, and veiled resistance. This politicized propaganda campaign is being transformed from state aspirations to the creative daily cultural consumption of young netizens. This analysis contributes to the scholarly literature on youth subcultures, political mobilization, and visual propaganda in post-socialist China.KEYWORDS: Youth studyCCYLInternet memesvisual communicationpolitical communication Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the project of digital dissemination of cultural IP of the Palace Museum (China Youth Development Foundation and Mercedes-Benz Starwish Star Fund) and the Major National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 18ZDA312].Notes on contributorsJie CuiJie Cui is a Ph.D. candidate of journalism and communication at the School of Media & Communication (SMC), Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research interests include political communication and popular culture [email: 251232215@qq.com].