Memes are multimodal digital discourses that typically spread on the Internet, mostly on social networks, with a humorous intention (Shifman, 2013; Zhang & Gearhar, 2022; Yus, 2021). However, they are not only for fun, but their purpose extends beyond mere entertainment. Memes frequently serve as tools for addressing social, economic (El-Gundy, 2023), educational, and political issues in a critical yet indirect manner (Abdou, 2021; Adly, 2021; Zhang & Gearhar, 2022). This study aims at investigating how Egyptians use such humorous discourses and images on Facebook (Khalifa, 2017; Elsayed, 2021) to denounce and highlight social and political realities. Particular attention is given to memes created and shared by Egyptians during the period spanning the 25 January 2011 revolution to the 2013 coup d’état, examining how their humorous tone fostered political satire in Egypt (El-Farahaty, 2019), defying and circumventing censorship. To reach this goal, a qualitative multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2021; Machin & Mayr, 2023) is conducted on a sample of ten memes published immediately after 2011, which satirically depict Egyptian socio-political events and figures. These memes are sourced from two Facebook pages as case studies, ‘Egyptian Memes’ and ‘asa7be sarcasm society’, which, despite not being classified as political platforms, feature some political content.
Not Just for Fun: Egyptians’ Socio-Political Issues Through Internet Humorous Memes
La Causa Lucia
2025-01-01
Abstract
Memes are multimodal digital discourses that typically spread on the Internet, mostly on social networks, with a humorous intention (Shifman, 2013; Zhang & Gearhar, 2022; Yus, 2021). However, they are not only for fun, but their purpose extends beyond mere entertainment. Memes frequently serve as tools for addressing social, economic (El-Gundy, 2023), educational, and political issues in a critical yet indirect manner (Abdou, 2021; Adly, 2021; Zhang & Gearhar, 2022). This study aims at investigating how Egyptians use such humorous discourses and images on Facebook (Khalifa, 2017; Elsayed, 2021) to denounce and highlight social and political realities. Particular attention is given to memes created and shared by Egyptians during the period spanning the 25 January 2011 revolution to the 2013 coup d’état, examining how their humorous tone fostered political satire in Egypt (El-Farahaty, 2019), defying and circumventing censorship. To reach this goal, a qualitative multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2021; Machin & Mayr, 2023) is conducted on a sample of ten memes published immediately after 2011, which satirically depict Egyptian socio-political events and figures. These memes are sourced from two Facebook pages as case studies, ‘Egyptian Memes’ and ‘asa7be sarcasm society’, which, despite not being classified as political platforms, feature some political content.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
