Memes and/in Politics: Discursive Analysis Movements

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to investigate, in the light of discursive studies, the effects of meaning emanating from memes, a textual genre manufactured in the digital medium and which has this space as a circulation scenario. Here, we focus on the analysis of the heterogeneity shown in “internet memes”. We intend to reveal that, in order to effectively understand such texts, it is necessary to understand the intersection of different social voices and, therefore, different discourses must be mobilized, assumed. As a corpus for analysis, considering the current political moment so troubled in the history of our country, in which voters on the right and left stage a very marked polarization, we elected six memes. These materialities were collected from two Facebook pages: “bolsomitos” and “bolsolixos”. For the analysis movements, we consider the process of construction of the interdiscourse and the refractions of meanings from materiality, prioritizing historical, cultural and social resonances. As a result, we note that the two groups produced memes, with strategic cuts, in order to project (negative) representations of politicians who do not support and exalt those who defend them, through representations favorable to them. We also realize that the production of meanings, by the reader, is possible from the mobilization of polyphonic aspects, whose verbal and non-verbal networks are, intimately, anchored to historical, cultural and social aspects, some better situated historically, others not so much .