Motivations of using memes in intragroup communication a multiple case study

As a result, this study aimed to address the question: “What are the motivations behind the usage of memes in intragroup communication among social media users?” Multiple approaches to d

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERATION STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND CULTURES OF ENGLISH SPEAKING

HÀ NỘI – 2020

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHOA NGÔN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HÓA CÁC NƯỚC NÓI TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ĐỘNG LỰC SỬ DỤNG MEMES TRONG

GIAO TIẾP NHÓM:

NGHIÊN CỨU TRƯỜNG HỢP

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Hoàng Thị Hạnh

Sinh viên: Đặng Thu Phương

Khóa: QH2016.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI – 2020

I hereby state that I: Dang Thu Phuong, class 16E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language Teacher Education program) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This graduation thesis is the product of several months of intensive work, which would not have been feasible without the guidance and support of many people I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Ms Hoang Thi Hanh for her expertise, encouragement and academic stimuli Your advice and feedback were invaluable to helping me express my ideas and put them into a research point of view

I would also like to thank all the lecturers in the Faculty of Linguistics and Cultures of English-speaking countries for supporting the supervisees to finish their theses and offering constructive comments on our works

Special thanks to my best friends, Ngoc Mai and Thuy Anh, for your laymen’s opinions and ever-lasting support to drag me out of my desperation Finally, to

my partner, Alex, who motivated me so much during the process that I eventually managed to complete my thesis with pride

ABSTRACT

When thinking about memes, laymen often associate them with simple pictures with texts inserted in, serving as youngsters’ banal humor Although scholars have realized the effectiveness of memes in communication, the motivations behind using different genres of memes were overlooked, especially in small-scale, private groups As a result, this study aimed to address the question: “What are the motivations behind the usage of memes in intragroup communication among social media users?” Multiple approaches to data analysis, including thematic content analysis, semiotic analysis, and discourse analysis, were applied

to examine the memes used of five cases The study finds that Internet memes are tools for users to express their political engagement and citizenship; to reflect their daily concerns and struggles in lives, and to perform their intercultural identity Thus, memes are not just trivial and insignificant humor as common biased perception, but they are also a semiotic means to communicate personal, cultural, and political matters in a critical way

KEYWORDS: Internet-memes, user-generated-humor, image-macro-memes,

motivations, intra-group-communication, in-group-communication

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF FIGURES iii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of problem 1

1.2 Scope of the study 3

1.3 Significance of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Memes 6

2.1.1 Definition of memes 6

2.1.2 Image-macro memes 6

2.1.3 Features of memes 7

2.2 Functions of memes 8

2.2.1 Agenda melding 9

2.2.2 Political engagement 9

2.2.3 Identity construction 10

2.2.4 Civic engagement 11

2.3 Model of sharing 12

2.4 Memes and group membership 13

2.5 Memes in group communication 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Data collection 16

3.1.1 Research Design 16

3.1.2 Research Instrument 16

3.1.3 Procedure 16

3.2 Participants 17

3.3 Data analysis 19

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 21

4.1 Political engagement 21

4.1.1 Serious political discussions 21

4.1.2 Light-hearted political humour 30

4.2 Personal issues 33

4.3 Intercultural identity 41

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 50

5.1 Discussion 50

5.2 Implications 52

5.3 Limitations and recommendations 53

REFERENCES 54

APPENDIX 60

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Image-macro Meme Sample 4

Figure 2: Model of Sharing (Miller, 2012) 12

Figure 3 – Disappointed Dad 22

Figure 4 – World’s disastrous events 2020 23

Figure 5 – Netizens’ speculation 24

Figure 6 – UK, Brexit and the EU 26

Figure 7 – Justin Trudeau as Blackface 27

Figure 8 – Fake news about Wuhan 29

Figure 9 – Theresa May as bacteria 31

Figure 10 – Mogg’s disrespect in the House of Commons 31

Figure 11 – Sad mushroom without a roller coaster 33

Figure 12 – Depression High-five 34

Figure 13 – Barbie and intrusive thoughts 36

Figure 14 – Sad Pug 37

Figure 15 – Baby Yoda’s new hair-cut 38

Figure 16 – English vs dinosaurs 39

Figure 17 – Kpop idol 40

Figure 18 – Iran wordplay 42

Figure 19 – Rhinos being “horny” 42

Figure 20 – Underage banana 43

Figure 21 – Asian and good grades 44

Figure 22 – Lucky money culture in Vietnam 45

Figure 23 – Dressing to the nines for Tet 46

Figure 24 – Family gatherings during Tet holiday 47

Figure 25 – Pho as a hangover food 48

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of problem

The Internet is widely known as the most popular communication medium consisting of a set of objects, materials and ideas, and it has become a reservoir for information to be dispersed (Cortesi & Gasser, 2014) It is in this cyberspace that the global contemporary population interacts with one another Thus, the Internet is constantly dynamic, reproduces already created messages endlessly and constantly adds more content (Górka, 2014)

Moreover, since the advent of social media (e.g Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), netizens (i.e people using the Internet) have found a tool for their pursuit of satisfaction and mood-sharing in a community culture where distance

is irrelevant and personal identification is unnecessary This culture is regarded a viral phenomenon as many Internet users, especially those using social networks, actively and effectively imitate each other’s culture, mindset and behavior (Górka, 2014); hence, memes were born as a logical progression of this phenomenon

Social media has played a pivotal role in spreading memes in the online community Thanks to the Internet’s nature, memes are now copied with higher fidelity (exact imitation), fecundity (in greater amount), and longevity since information can be easily stored on online platforms (Brunello, 2012) Though there are numerous definitions of memes, a meme will hereby be understood as a content item, namely jokes, rumors, videos, or websites propagated among Internet users (Shifman, 2013) Besides, the word “meme” is used by netizens to illustrate the swift uptake and dissemination of “a particular idea presented as a written text, image, language ‘move,’ or some other unit of cultural stuff” (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007, p 202) Memes can be represented in multiple forms such as images, hyperlinks, videos, websites or hashtags Two ways in which a meme can be spread are through the sharing of its exact copy, or with

slight alteration However, memes with iterative versions are far more favored by meme users (Cortesi & Gasser, 2014)

Since memes carry a whimsical gist and are strongly connected to modern pop culture (Segev et al., 2015), they are often considered a superficial and trivial aspect of this culture (Shifman, 2013) Memes’ contribution to the society

is not observable to the naked eye, making them understudied from a scholarly viewpoint (Brunello, 2013) There have been several denunciations of the prevalence of memes (Shifman, 2013) Firstly, too many concepts of memes were proposed; however, a clear-cut definition of memes has not been reached

In addition, memes are too simple to be classified as a result of sophisticated human behaviors and there are no additional benefits to the understanding of memes (Shifman, 2014) Another reason is that the analysis of memes is abstract and controversial (Shifman, 2013); thus, this poses a challenge in determining the values of memes

However, in a time of swift content flow on multiple media platforms (Jenkins, 2006), memes have served more meaningful purposes rather than just for simple laughs They help construct users’ personalities in online communities, contribute to public discourse and perform as a mediator for

“citizens to participate in public, collective actions, while maintaining their sense

of individuality” (Shifman, 2014, p 129) Besides, they are capable of conveying very emotional and highly contextualized information (Reime, 2017) and, beyond their use as tools of entertainment and humor, they can express informative and controversial messages (Veerasamy & Labuschagne, 2014) A meme is not simply memetic, but it requires users to use familiar ideas and previous knowledge, either from real life or already generated memes, to create unfamiliar combinations in a novel and interesting way (Brunello, 2012) Therefore, memes are the results of individuals purposefully utilizing memetic elements to create something else with aesthetics

This study examines memes within social groups to broaden our understanding of other roles of memes beyond the apparent humorous effects This can help people appreciate the intricacies of meme usage and potentially gain greater understanding of certain aspects of contemporary culture we are all living in (Shifman, 2013) Even though the previous research covers a great deal

in the meme reservoir, there is one aspect that was not focused on which is the motivations of using memes Furthermore, most studies have adopted a quantitative approach to analyze memes’ content and effectiveness without engaging meme creators or meme sharers Thus, this research aims to employ a qualitative approach to find out the specific reasons or motivations for the usage

of memes in communication

To achieve this goal, I want to address the research question:

What are the motivations behind the usage of memes in intragroup communication among social media users?

1.2 Scope of the study

Even though memes can come in a plethora of formats such as images, videos, and hyperlinks, this study will only pay attention to image-macro memes

as the sole subject of analysis, and will hence exclude videos, animations and other forms The reason for this selection is the observable prevalence of image macro-memes over other meme formats among social media users and on the most well-known meme aggregator KnowYourMeme (Knobel & Lankshear,

2007)

Figure 1: Image-macro Meme Sample

As I am curious about the active distribution of memes by the sharers and why they do so, rather than how people react to the memes sent to them, the motivations behind sharing memes is the focus of interest in this study This research is also limited to intragroup or in-group communication on texting applications (e.g Facebook Messenger, Instagram direct, and Whatsapp) to gain

a deeper insight into how memes are used and shared by individuals when they converse with their peers in the group chats Each of these groups contains about two to three members aged 20 to 25, including the interviewees Their conversations are solely confined in their groups and are not shared to other outsiders

1.3 Significance of the study

Existing research on memes predominantly features a quantitative design to analyze memes in the form of videos (Gal et al., 2015; Shifman, 2013) Others focus on functions of socio-political memes, such as agenda melding (Friedlander & Riedy, 2015), satire (Górka, 2014), political rhetoric (Huntington, 2015) and meme effectiveness in communication (Veerasamy & Labuschagne, 2014) However, motivations behind using other different genres of memes have

not been paid sufficient attention, so this study will attempt to add to this body of research

Since memes have such importance attached to them but are underestimated,

it is hoped that this research can shed light on the understanding of memes in the field of communication – an emerging culture that permeates cyberspace Furthermore, this can contribute to the literature on Internet memes, especially

motivations for engaging with memes

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Memes

2.1.1 Definition of memes

The most widely accepted definition of memes cited in various studies is the

one coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene in 1976 According

to Dawkins, memes are cultural data media analogous to genes that leap from brain to brain by imitation He believed that memes are infectious units of culture that turn people into passive machines to multiply it In other words, these cultural counterparts of genes propagate themselves with free will and humans have no alternative but to duplicate it Early examples of memes in Dawkins’ pioneering texts are melodies, catchphrases, fashion, as well as ritual and religious beliefs (Górka, 2014; Shifman, 2013)

Nevertheless, as memes gradually became the topic of nonstop academic debate, scholars have realized that people only imitate a behavior when they consider it worth copying (Brunello, 2012) This returns agency to the meme sharers since they choose which meme to disseminate in cyberspace These individuals clearly have their free will and thereby, their motivations of sharing memes are worth exploring

Following this realization, memes are defined as the types of texts (motifs, phrases, pictures, and videos) that are based upon political and pop culture contents and willingly circulated by social media users (Milner, 2016; Shifman, 2014) These pieces of information are created, modified and distributed by multiple individuals, which explains memes’ prevalence in today’s time

2.1.2 Image-macro memes

Image-macro is by far the most wide-spread online meme category It is one

of the simplest formats to communicate ideas and meanings at speed “just within

a single frame” (Tay, 2012, p 11) On social media, image-macro memes can draw attention since they are in picture form and the message can be conveyed

much faster than just plain text The ease of creating image-macro memes means that they become more handy and inclusive (Plevriti et al., 2014), and enable more individuals to share them with a simple Tweet or Facebook post (Owens, 2012) Therefore, it is understandable how this type of meme gain its popularity through time

2.1.3 Features of memes

Memes become catchy and are shared on a large scale because they are collaborative, accruing, dispersed and produced “out of networks of shared interests, experiences, habits, worldviews and pick up on or use texts, events, phenomena, icons, and cultural artifacts” (Brunello, 2012, p 8) This collaborative nature has raised memes to a higher level of digital discourse which

is participatory discourse (Huntington, 2015) Because memes, despite being disseminated throughout different platforms in multiple variations, must maintain certain similarities and common features, they require users to produce and share memes collectively (Segev et al., 2015) Besides, memes develop through remixes, commentary and they diffuse in homogenous communities (Bauckhage, 2011), so memes rapidly reach a great segment of audience regardless of geographic boundaries and possess the ability to focus on seemingly insignificant but highly viral sound bites (Nasri, 2012)

Furthermore, memes are “viral media objects” that mimic some ideas, concepts or products in a funny way (Shifman, 2013), so laymen perceive memes

as humorous and nothing else Nevertheless, even jokes are much more complicated than how they are typically perceived Joking is a part of social communication between the joke teller and his/ her listener It involves an implicit background acting as an agreement on worldviews between the two parties Especially, when it comes to inside jokes, the teller and the audience must share the same taste and certain background to understand the jokes (Brunello, 2012) Hence, when individuals share memes as inside jokes in their

groups, memes here significantly rely on “contexts, values and previous knowledge” shared by the group members (Brunello, 2012, p 19)

Of all the scholars studying memes, Blackmore (1994, p 13) comes up with a holistic list of key features for memes that is greatly supported and adopted by others:

Variation: the copied version of one meme is not always perfect and it will

definitely differ somewhat from the initial one

Selection: some memes are paid attention, faithfully remembered and shared

to other people whereas others fail to get imitated

Retention: some ideas, meanings or messages from the original meme must

be maintained to be considered a copy or learning by examples

Fidelity: how strong the core idea of the original meme is and if it remains

intact in spite of several deviations

Fecundity: how quickly a meme duplicates or how many imitations are made

in a certain period of time

Longevity: how long a particular meme can survive in such a changeable

online platform

2.2 Functions of memes

Besides being used to elicit pure laughs in inside jokes, memes have served

as a light-hearted way for young people to engage with current affairs, politics and news The youth perceive memes as an innovative news genre and they regard online memes as more amusing, context-dependent, visually attractive and absorbable than news broadcasted on traditional media platforms such as The New York Times (Cortesi & Gasser, 2014) Thus, news genres like memes are more influential towards what adolescents access and share Furthermore,

memes are chosen to reduce the chance of misunderstanding (Reime, 2017) when serious topics are included in memes in a comical way Using humor to evade the mundane reality has been a natural occurring phenomenon among meme users (Górka, 2014) Other more salient and well-demonstrated purposes

of memes will be discussed in the sub-sections below

2.2.1 Agenda melding

In social media environment where messages are easily dispersed, campaigners recognize the potential of infographics, memes in particular, to seed and circulate their agendas to individuals in the communities (Friedlander & Riedy, 2015) This is based on the theory of agenda melding that people seek out beliefs and attributes corresponding with their interests and values from both mass and interpersonal media to ‘meld’ their agendas with the overall agenda of the group (Ragas & Roberts, 2009)

Having acknowledged this, campaign organizers have adopted the strategic use of memes as a type of rhetoric to attract potential audience When given memes to look at, the viewers assess whether the campaign agenda aligns with their preferences and cognitions Through the agenda selected, audience members not only express but also reinforce their personal values and attitudes Realizing that individuals seek out what supports their opinions, while disregard and avoid information that does not, campaigners manage to introduce memes compatible with their aims to persuade people This theory reflects the fact that people share memes to meld with group norms contributing to group consensus and aggregation (Friedlander & Riedy, 2015)

2.2.2 Political engagement

Much as memes are humorous, they can be packed with visual arguments Putting a meme in context and breaking down the reasoning can help analysts make meaningful judgments about visual rhetoric in a social campaign (Huntington, 2016) Memes, via the creative and intentional use of individuals,

can mock aspects of contemporary discourse and culture in an exaggerated manner, cast doubt on the mainstream hierarchy, hence represent civil freedom (Górka, 2014) Different manifestations of this trend are carnivalization, caricature, parody and political satire The intertextual nature of memes plus the use of synecdoche and historical icons are useful instruments to provide a

critique of rhetoric in social movements, for example in the Pepper Spraying

Cop meme (Huntington, 2015) Practically speaking, memes have become a

channel for individuals to be politically engaged (Huntington, 2017)

2.2.3 Identity construction

Thanks to the participatory media, distinct identities are allowed presence in cyberspace which has become the fertile ground for collective identity forming (Gal et al., 2015) Memes, on this platform, have evolved and turned into powerful symbols since in this community, the like-minded are more likely to gather (Reime, 2017) User-generated memes assist their creators in the process

of displaying their individuality as innovative, especially people with digital literacy (Yus, 2018) to affiliate with the larger corpus Meme communication has been an important source of “users’ identity forming and their self-awareness beyond the typical intentional acts of communication” (Yus, 2019, p 133) Additionally, members in an online group or community always seek to obtain and secure a positive social identity (Mazambani et al., 2015) by firstly defining themselves in line with the group norms and secondly receiving audience validation via likes and comments (Yus, 2019) These factors are all impactful to users’ status within the group and signal membership The creation and dissemination of Internet memes have allowed web surfers to form and declare their identity and to participate in online media discourse both as an individual and as part of a community they feel they belong to (Huntington, 2017)

2.2.4 Civic engagement

In the past, the public sphere was where individuals can join in discussions free from restrictions set by dominant groups (Ward, 1997) The previously oppressed and marginalized people’s active participation was highly promoted and shared citizenship responsibility was constructed (Dietel-McLaughlin, 2009) This is a manifestation of democracy along with the increase of community power (Hristova, 2013)

However, in this age of technological advances, the development of new social media and the participatory culture have fostered citizens’ involvement in the world around them (Huntington, 2017) By definition, to be civically engaged is to care about the city or town that one is living in Yet, the public’s expectations and understanding of what constitutes civic participation have changed owing to the prevalent usage of the Internet and social networks (Bennett, Freelon, Hussein & Wells, 2012; Bimber, 2012) The outcomes can be the intention to join in either civic (e.g voluntary work) or citizen-oriented activities (e.g voting) (Gil de Zuniga, Jung & Valenzuela, 2012)

Engagement with politics does not only mean campaigning or joining a political party, but instead, enjoying aspects of pop culture can be an expression

of civic involvement (Plevriti, 2014) Enjoying politics through memes encourages citizens to reflect on political ideals and inspire political debates among Internet users (Gray, Jones & Thompson 2009) To sum up, activities such as meme creation, consumption and circulation serve not only as public commentary and satire but as important symbol of civic engagement and active citizenship (Burgess, Foth & Klaebe, 2006)

2.3 Model of sharing

A model has been theorized to show four stages a meme goes through:

assimilation (when it is noticed, understood and accepted), retention (it gets

stored in one’s memory), expression (it is described in that individual’s language, behavior or any other perceivable forms), and transmission (it is

disseminated and copied by other Internet users) (Buchel, 2012; Mazambani et al., 2015) In each of these stages, there is always room for selection whether an individual agrees with or rejects that meme

A model of sharing developed by Miller (2012) is a simple yet efficient

explanation of how a meme is circulated in cyberspace (See Figure 2 below)

Figure 2: Model of Sharing (Miller, 2012)

In this model by Miller (2012), one firstly reacts to a meme either created by themselves or others in cyberspace There are then two situations; they can either like or dislike the content The latter circumstance results in the meme being discarded, regardless of whether it is created or received by the subject However, if the former one happens, they will predict whether their peer will prefer that meme and share it to them Once that friend also understands and accepts the content, their guess is accurate and the cycle begins again when each

individual repeatedly distributes the meme to the point that everyone in their social circle knows about it

The rule of thumb is that whenever an image is forwarded to an online partner, the sender will tend to tune their message to suit the receiver According

to Zajonc’s theory of Cognitive Tuning (Zajonc, 1960), interaction between two communicators is better facilitated when they listen to each other and agree on topics that they have interests in Thanks to that, they can effectively anticipate their peers’ needs and expectations to tailor more appropriate messages for one another Thus, it is apparent that even though memes are a complicated online phenomenon, the model suggests that memes’ popularity can be explained by their quick and easy transmission process

2.4 Memes and group membership

Memes used to be dispersed in much larger communities where members are total strangers Each of these groups have different preferences and characteristics; nevertheless, to establish grounding for successful communication in such systems, the circulated content has to capitalize on popular knowledge and assumptions of the group culture (Mazambani et al., 2015) This refers to group norms understood as “a set of rules and expectations which apply to all group members and determine acceptable behaviors” (p 5) When regulations in an organization exist, there might be two reactions: obedience or deviation The former one enhances the group’s boundaries and reinforces the norms’ transparency as being natural On the other hand, if one violates the rules, he or she may be rejected or reprimanded, which weakens that community’s normative infrastructure (Gal et al., 2015) This is a vital determiner for humor since jokes must follow the group norms and respect the negotiation implicitly agreed upon by group members When it falls off the limit, appreciation quickly disappears (Brunello, 2012)

Hierarchical structures also emerge among members in online societies Evidently, high participation indicates leadership and great social impact, which grant them the title ‘high-status members.’ In most cases, low-status members mimic and communicate with higher-status ones to obtain information and approval Others may be more willing to adopt new ideas different from the group’s mainstream content to stand out and accomplish stature (Mazambani et al., 2015)

Nevertheless, all members share a common feature that is “an enduring human longing for communality” (Shifman, 2014, p 33) According to Plevriti (2014), one shares memes with close friends or acquaintances on social networks

to strengthen his/ her social connections For them, norm-fitting, group validation and in-group solidarity are even more valuable than a unique identity (Yus, 2018) This phenomenon is known as ‘networked individualism.’ Thus, adherence to group norms is not only paramount to members’ pleasure, but it also boosts collective bonding and awareness of membership

2.5 Memes in group communication

When a meme is sent to an individual or distributed among several members

of a group, the people receiving it attempt to interpret the message using their knowledge and experiences In this process, they use the image featured in the meme as a useful contextual source to fill in the information gaps and find a resolution (Aunger, 2002) The interaction between the sender and the recipient via memes is a form of communication since memes provide avenues for a person to share his/ her ideas, viewpoints and stories and get feedback on them Furthermore, individuals are allowed to actively and creatively involve and to express their thoughts about different topics, be it common everyday mundane or current notable events (Buchel, 2012)

One may question why a picture is needed to facilitate conversations;

however, Internet memes utilize pop culture as a shared reference frame, and

thus make communication more “understandable and predictable” (Buchel, 2012,

p 62) Talking about a topic without the use of memes to begin with may require

a much longer introduction about what ideas the meme sharer is delivering

Therefore, the use of memes can engage people in a form of social interaction

“mediated by means of Internet communication” (Buchel, 2012, p 66)

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Data collection

3.1.1 Research Design

Since the research aims to find out the motivations by which people use memes in their daily group conversation, a qualitative approach is chosen; more specifically, a multiple case-study This method, though it involves a limited number of participants, can provide significant explanatory power through a thorough and nuanced analysis of data (Page et al., 2014) Thus, it can help to further understand meme users’ thoughts and demeanors

3.1.2 Research Instrument

The data was collected using a set of open-ended semi-structured interview

questions (See Appendix) The interview consisted of several key questions

created in advance asking participants about their use of memes, for instance what kinds of memes they share to their friends, what the meanings of those

memes are and why they circulate these memes Besides, follow-up questions

were added to key questions to allow the interviewer to pursue certain details or ideas from the participants’ responses (Gill et al., 2008) All questions were drafted with an intent to encourage interviewees to comfortably talk about their meme use

3.1.3 Procedure

Five in-depth interviews were conducted with the participants as informal conversations to ensure a relaxing atmosphere Interviewees were contacted beforehand to arrange the time and location for the interviews Four out of five participants (Adam, An, Hong and Ngan – all names are pseudonyms) were interviewed face-to-face in quiet cafés in Hanoi while the interview with Manh took place one-on-one online due to geographical distance The interviewees were also asked about their preferred language which they did not mind Hence,

English was chosen as all participants are competent, and all the memes they shared are predominantly in this language

Since the study is restricted to intragroup or in-group which is “an exclusive, typically small group of people with a shared interest or identity” (Oxford Dictionary), all interviewees talked about sharing memes in their own group of friends This means there were five separate groups of two to three members depending on the participants’ social circle For instance, Adam’s, Hong’s and Ngan’s groups have two people, whereas Manh and An are both in groups of three I am not in any of these groups since I simply do not use memes in my daily conversations and I just appreciate the humor effects that memes bring about

During the interviews, participants were asked to think of one specific group chat that they use memes in and to show examples of memes they shared in their group communication They simply self-reported since I did not wish to force them to share their personal conversations Therefore, they selected whichever memes they felt comfortable enough talking about After that, they were asked to elaborate more on some certain interesting memes, for example about their intention when using those memes Each interview lasted about one hour and all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed for later analysis Personal information of the participants such as names, universities, workplaces and names mentioned in the interviews were changed to ensure confidentiality

3.2 Participants

In total, there are five participants in this research, one is a native speaker from England and four others are Vietnamese university students majoring in English

In further details, Adam is a 23 year old British man living in Hanoi, Vietnam

for three years who takes great interest in memes involving politics, memes related to his and his friend’s hobbies (football/ motorsport), and memes with other kinds of general humour such as dark humour

An is a 21 year old Vietnamese girl studying at a university in Hanoi,

Vietnam She mentions the most common types of memes she sends to her group

of three friends (herself included) are ones that reflect ongoing social/ political events, memes about emotions, and dark humour

Hong and Ngan are two 22 year old Vietnamese undergraduates in Hanoi,

Vietnam Hong self-reported to share ‘depressing’ memes, ‘cute’ memes, university/ grades related memes and memes that feature puns Ngan, on the other hand, is more enthusiastic with memes related to pop culture (e.g movies

or K-pop) and memes with animals The one thing these two participants have in common is that they both engage with memes pertaining to their university

Finally, Manh is a 22 year old Vietnamese boy residing in Canada for three

years His group chat consists of two other Vietnamese friends all studying abroad in the same city He shares a variety of memes about animals, pop culture, Vietnamese cultures and current events in this group

The aforementioned five were chosen since they all reported to not only share memes encountered online, but they also edit these memes for their own communicative purposes This indicates much greater engagement from the five selected meme users These five are in the researcher’s circle of connections and

in the same age range – 20 to 25 years old Their age range was selected because user-generated content is a very well-participated activity among young people (Wunsch-Vincent & Vickery 2007) and comedy is their favorite genre of memes (Madden, 2007) Additionally, Adam and Manh have familiarized themselves with Vietnamese and Canadian cultures respectively, and although An, Ngan and

Hong have never studied abroad, they all had years immersing in Western cultures as a part of their university programs Therefore, these five participants are selected since they all have intercultural experiences despite distinct starting backgrounds This selection helped the researcher investigate meme usage of a culturally diverse population within their unique group communication

to their underlying meanings As a result, the researcher may be able to answer the research question by drawing sufficient and worthwhile conclusions from these sets of coded data (Erlingsson & Brysiewicz, 2013)

While thematic content analysis was helpful for combining seemingly unrelated information, semiotic and discourse analyses were adopted to scrutinize the selected memes because they deconstruct a sign/ text and make possible hidden meanings visible (Brunello, 2012) As mentioned, an image macro meme consists of a picture functioning as a template or situational background, to which a specific and related written content is added (Reime, 2017) This type of meme includes an image which semiotic analysis focuses on and an inserted caption which can be examined by discourse analysis Furthermore, discourse analysis is a powerful tool when interpreting participants’ text-based transcription Hence, these three efficient analyzing means were used

to help attain the most insightful reasons to why the participants are motivated to

use memes in their group communication

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 4.1 Political engagement

4.1.1 Serious political discussions

The findings show that memes were used by participants not only as a tool to express their opinions about social or political matters, but also to begin a conversation to exchange perspectives with their friends about those issues

Adam – a British person in a democratic culture, has concerns about the UK’s politics especially with Brexit being the most heated debate of the country in recent years He explained his motivation behind sharing these types of memes:

I share some of these political memes because I find them amusing, that is the most important thing but also with political memes, it's an opportunity to start

a discussion about current events with friends sometimes Politics evolves very quickly with new events taking place every day for example with something like Brexit

These memes might also be a conversation starter for us to talk about political current events, as my friends might react with a comment about the event/topic in question in the meme

Adam also sent the meme with a dad frowning when he figures out his son

votes for Labour (See Figure 3 below), the discussion Adam and his friend had

after this meme happened as follow:

The conversation might initially be my friend laughing at the meme, and then

he might make a comment related to that, like ‘I hope they don't win the next election.’ Then the conversation progresses on that theme I'll reply like 'yeah

I hope they don't either, don't think they will though based on the opinion polls.' My friend: 'Tories aren't much better though.' Me: 'Yeah none of them have a clue about how to sort out this situation, but I mean nobody ever exited the EU before so the politicians don't have any precedent to follow still though it's a complete mess' etc basically conversation from the meme will evolve into critiquing the current events and sharing our opinions

One meme about a political party can lead to an exchange of opinions in the group about the overall political dynamics of the whole country between Adam and his peer Both of them agreed that the two parties in the UK were equally

clueless about addressing Brexit This shows their disappointment in the policy makers and their belief that the public would not vote for Labour eventually The funny and silly image not only evokes amusement in the group chat but also initiates a discussion among the group members Thus, memes are just not for entertainment purposes, but they are an effective tool for their users to begin a conversation online about deeper and more serious topics like politics

Figure 3 – Disappointed Dad

As for An, her memes usually reflect ongoing social events, either in Vietnam

or worldwide She is apparently concerned about the Gateway incident,

American – Iran conflict and Corona Virus (See Figure 4) In this meme, during

the first two months of 2020, several disasters unfortunately happened For instance, around January 8th, Trump announced direct military confrontation with Iran since Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 176 people on board Thus, the US imposed economic sanctions on Iran, resulting in further conflict between the two nations – as seen from Tom and Jerry holding guns back to back Two other events that happened were the worst wildfires in decades which ravaged Australia, and Venice’s second highest flood in history which rendered

most city’s waterways impassable The most recent one is an outbreak of novel Corona virus started in Wuhan, China and is shown in the meme where both Tom and Jerry have red rashes on their faces

Figure 4 – World’s disastrous events 2020

When she sent this meme to her group chat, the meme triggered a fruitful conversation:

A friend asked me for clarification and I started explaining the situation, then encouraged him to read more news about it We then started giving opinions

We agreed on disapproving the US side We both thought they started everything first We ended on the same note because practically we shared one perspective about this matter

Even though her friend did not acknowledge this incident about the US and Iran before, the meme aroused her friend’s curiosity to know more about the event and thanks to this, the chain of opinions exchange commenced This discussion ended in consensus

Figure 5 – Netizens’ speculation

However, this is not always the case An used the Vietnamese meme in Figure 5 to express her perspectives about the Gateway event when a primary school student was reported to have died in the school bus without the bus driver’s, teachers’ and school administrators’ acknowledgement In the meme, many middle-aged Vietnamese women gather to do chores but also to gossip Their faces all show disapproval by the grumpy look This meme is a parody of netizens’ reaction whenever a felony takes place While the police are investigating to consolidate their files, people on the Internet make guesses like the government are corrupted and the press is using other news to distract the public from serious crimes Even though An shared this meme to criticize the Internet community, it reflects an aspect of democracy that citizens should cast doubt on their governments’ actions and be engaged in national political happenings An talked about the discussion following another meme about the same topic:

I once shared a meme regarding the Gateway incident More specifically, it’s about people speculating about who must take responsibility for the boy’s death And the post attracted people from two different perspectives One agrees with me, agreeing with and believing in the authority One suspects the authority’s reliability and that there’re “powerful figures” trying to cover

up the truth After around 13 exchanges they couldn’t reach a common point and the former one decided to unfriend the latter My other friend was very aggressive towards the government, who she believed tried to conceal the truth

This Gateway meme was a way for An to showcase her concern with recent national happenings and also to express her trust in the officials in this unfortunate incident Clearly the debate did not affect her personally as the sharer, yet it created an unresolvable conflict between the other two members Thus, the meme acted effectively as a way to be politically engaged for participants of contrasting viewpoints to comment on, discuss and argue for and against different perspectives related to the event Regardless of whether an argument (such as with An and her friends) or an agreement (in the case of Adam and his friend) over the topic is reached among participants, memes were

an effective tool for users to start conversations about political and social events within their groups

Memes provide avenues for the efficient delivery of thoughts, views and ideas and by sharing these memes, people become involved actively and creatively in conversations (Buchel, 2012) The findings above have found this

to be the case, specifically with memes related to socio-political issues Therefore, it is fair to say that meme users can utilize memes to trigger participation in discussion and solicit fruitful responses from others about several different matters (Shao, 2009), especially political or social

Instead of mere consumption of politics as information or truth from government’s news, this kind of memes can even open a pathway for users to question their realities and their politics proactively (Gray, Jones & Thompson, 2009), besides provoking discussions Adam’s use of Brexit-related memes

illustrates this He sent me a meme about Brexit (See Figure 6) featuring a man

surfing in the ocean next to a big fancy cruise ship, he expressed the viewpoint that:

The picture is metaphorical The EU is a ship so it’s like strong, stable and reliable And you know Brexit is something that has no precedent, politically speaking No country has ever left the EU before so it’s very unclear how Brexit will play out and thus the meme is a commentary on how what the UK

is doing is like the crazy guy on a surfboard compared to the ship

To be clearer, Brexit is a referendum when the UK voted to leave the EU thinking they are being held back with unfair economic deals Nevertheless, four years since Brexit and the UK has had three elections, but the elected party refused to act on Brexit UK currency was going down in terms of value and the country was having several difficulties managing itself

Figure 6 – UK, Brexit and the EU

Adam said that the strange surfing man with an umbrella shown in the meme,

is a metaphor for the UK and the EU He remarked that Brexit is something

‘crazy’ and ‘unprecedented’ His sharing shows that he cares about what is going

on politically in his country and has his own opinion about this event Then from this, his friends can also be involved in the process of reflecting and evaluating the political realm