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- Convenors:
-
Tsafi Sebba-Elran
(Haifa University)
Liisi Laineste (Estonian Literary Museum)
Christian Ritter (Karlstad University)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Ana Banić Grubišić
(University of Belgrade)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Digital Lives
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
COVID-19 has prompted memes and other types of online folklore. Combining theoretical and practical approaches to study the ongoing crisis and its public response, the panel and workshop deal with experimental forms of gathering and presenting the pandemic-related ethnographic data.
Long Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a widespread public response, which included internet memes, jokes, and other types of online folklore. The humorous reactions reflected and shaped by these narratives became an integral component of the "semantics of the epidemic" - everyday ideas and practices in dealing with it.
The panel focuses on the internet meme or image macro, and its various targets, types and roles during the pandemic in different national and regional contexts. We will discuss common content, form and meaning of meme cycles during this crisis. The data will be analysed from a comparative perspective, to the backdrop of previous waves of disaster jokes and the use of folklore in response to previous epidemics, crises, or risks. Examining the repertoires of different national and social groups will enable us to point at their universal and particular aspects, and show how they reflect the tensions of the pandemic as well as of the digital medium - between the global and the local, and between the hegemonic and the subversive.
The final session of the panel will be a workshop which invites ethnographic researchers who seek to explore the possibilities and limitations of ethnography as a form of transmedia storytelling (e.g. Walley 2015). Attendees will reflect on experimental forms of gathering and presenting ethnographic data. Transmedia storytelling carries great potential for rethinking asymmetrical power relations and ethnographic collaboration, transgressing both platform monopolies and traditional rules for authorship.
Please register for the workshop session here: https://forms.gle/Z52PdLxL9RHz6aBV7
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
The paper seeks to reveal the parodic nature of an extensive collection of humorous memes complied in Israel from February-June 2020 and address the whole range of tensions that parody preserves in this context. Particularly, its ambivalence towards prevailing cultural rationales in social media.
Paper long abstract:
The paper seeks to reveal and discuss the parodic nature of an extensive collection of humorous memes complied in Israel from February-June 2020, and ask what can it teach us about the (Israeli) public response to COVID-19 and about the digital medium as a rich source of contemporary folklore.
While the wide scope of parodies in this context is not surprising, considering the collage-oriented nature of the meme and its reliance on memetic templates (Nissenbaum and Shifman 2018), the cultural index or database they reference and their roles are not self-evident. This repertoire includes hundreds of parodies about movies, TV shows, famous paintings, games and even reports, graphs and instructions, time indicators and myths. Some were common on social media even before the epidemic, and some reflect a unique local reaction to its challenges. According to Hutcheon (1985), parody is not a matter of nostalgic imitation of past models but rather a stylistic confrontation, or a modern recoding which establishes difference at the heart of similarity. Hence, the parodic quote (whether that of a genre, literary work, character, or object) is simultaneously a gesture and a mockery, idealization and resistance. It reflects the desire to regain control of the disease side by side with its futility. The paper will address the whole range of tensions that parody preserves, and in particular, its ambivalence towards prevailing cultural rationales in social media.
Paper short abstract:
Defining memes as "(post)modern folklore” that expresses and shapes shared norms and values within communities, the paper will analyze the depiction of distance learning in Estonian memes, highlighting different points of view: the position of the students, the teachers, and the parents.
Paper long abstract:
Restrictions and special measures were imposed around the world to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, one of the most important of which was certainly the reorganization of learning and work as home-based activity. The new way of life that accompanied the special situation was also reflected in widespread folklore, including internet memes. Defining memes as "(post)modern folklore” (Shifman 2013) that expresses and shapes shared norms and values within communities, my paper will analyze the depiction of distance learning in Estonian memes, highlighting different points of view: the position of the students, the teachers, and the parents.
The source data comes from the meme collection of the research archive of the Department of Folkloristics of the Estonian Literary Museum, which consists of more than 2,000 meme units collected during the crisis period. Some data was collected separately, for example, Tartu Variku School organized a meme competition “My Distance Learning” for students of Tartu schools in April 2020 (540 memes).
The study addresses the following questions: What local features emerge in distance learning memes that spread during the pandemic? How have students used other cultural resources in these memes (e.g. pop culture elements known from literature, cinema, music and other important cultural texts)? Whether and how these memes express, for example, family relationships (between children / youngsters and parents), school relationships (between students and teachers), what patterns of distance working are prevalent, etc.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I present an interpretation of memes as parody of Italian public discourse during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. I will use the memes that in Italy had a viral circulation during the March and May 2020, and in following months in relation to the orders of Italian government presidency.
Paper long abstract:
The use of WhatsApp played a central role because it allows instant circulation with the chats of colleagues and friends.
Even Facebook played a great role, due to the ease of use in saving images that circulate in viral way across social network.
These are some sites on Facebook that are the centres of JPEG files or video clips.
Following the models of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene), these memes can be assimilated to the notion of “meme” which is used more generally in evolutionary biology and in cognitive anthropology (see Dan Sperber La contagion des idées).
These files circulate on the internet and along the social relationships covered by contacts with smartphones and social media in a viral way and by imitation.
According to John Fiske, parody of official discourse is a form of ironic, sarcastic, scatological manipulation that reveals the resistance character of the popular classes. Following David Le Breton, humor is a tool of social criticism, as a sort of ‘cold weapon’ of defenceless citizens.
Paper short abstract:
The aim of the paper is to show the Polish story of the Covid-19 pandemic. The universal themes were complemented by strictly culturally immersed topics, reflecting the situation in Poland. The database consists of three hundred memes, films and comments collected between February and May 2020.
Paper long abstract:
The aim of the paper is to show the Polish story of the Covid-19 pandemic as seen through the humorous looking glass. Different stages of coronavirus presence in the media and social discourse have been accompanied by the appearance and development of jokes and memes, and illustrated the rapidly changing pandemic situation. The universal themes present in the humorous material travelling around the world were complemented by strictly culturally immersed topics, reflecting the specific social and political situation in Poland. The humorous material was related to introduced restrictions, changing laws, parliamentary elections, news from other affected countries, and also seasons and festive times – especially Easter – occurring at the same period. The database consists of over three hundred memes, films and comments collected between February and May 2020 – during the pandemic humor peak, which come mostly from private Whatsup and Facebook accounts of the researchers. The analysis undertaken in the article focuses on all various kinds of sophisticated mechanisms which involve intertextuality (allusions) as well complexity of references that function as sources of humor. Humorous mechanisms this involve various intertextual and intellectual allusions, and use a large range of genres. In all the examples discussed we can observe multiple levels and shifts in points of view, as well as attribution of an opinion, attitude or belief.
Keywords: memes, intertextuality, complexity, socialism, Covid restrictions, political allusions, stereotypes
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses classical music memes relating to covid-19 in terms of newslore in which different manifestations of the pandemic in the memes function as boundary objects. In a humorous way, memes blend classical music knowledge and competence with the extraordinary conditions of the pandemic.
Paper long abstract:
In an ongoing research project, I study representations and negotiations of classical music in social media, focusing specifically on content and sharing of internet memes. As a rich and diverse genre of digital folklore, memes are today an integrated part also in popular discourses on classical music. Memes provide users with resources in interaction relating to aesthetics, historical canon, musical theoretical knowledge, career and professional life among other things. During the Coronavirus pandemic, classical music memes commenting on different aspects of the outbreak give insight into how online classical music communities meme and make sense (and nonsense) of the pandemic within a classical music framework. This paper discusses classical music memes relating to the Coronavirus in terms of newslore – that is, as folklore that comments on current events – and as a way to playfully expose knowledge of and stance towards different aspects of classical music, the global pandemic and the rules and recommendations of authorities. I will suggest that the different manifestations of the pandemic, such as face masks, physical distancing or curves, function as boundary objects, enabling different groups to “work” together with interpreting the pandemic and “translating” it into their specific area. To conclude, I suggest that a key function in these memes is their capacity to – in an often humoristic fashion – blend together passed down knowledge, competence and experience from the classical music world with extraordinary current conditions affecting people globally.