Date of Completion
2018
Document Type
Honors College Thesis
Thesis Type
College of Arts and Science Honors, Honors College
First Advisor
Thomas Streeter
Keywords
meme, politics, internet, democracy, media, news
Abstract
The 2016 American Presidential Election was a point of great upheaval in the consciousness of many. To many it signified the defeat of the previous global liberal paradigm and a weakening of the traditional ways in which we organize ourselves politically and socially. While most of culture undergoes mediation through the internet- political processes are no exception. This paper aims to analyze how modern political discourses and organizing occur online, and how often politics occurs at the level of memetic communications. The analysis hinges upon studying the history of political memes such as Pepe and the relationship between the news and politics. But it ultimately culminates with the relationship between performing authenticity on the political field and subcultural signifiers such as memes.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Yopak, Jacob A., "The Meme as Post-Political Communication Form: A Semiotic Analysis" (2018). UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses. 263.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses/263