Summary:
The great influence of political memes, which are rapidly spreading, triggering a variety of comments and discussions in the public debate, are the main research material of the work. The main theme of the work is the messages that the satirical commentary on situations of public political life in the country sends out to citizens who simply do not just consume traditional and non-media information, but they create their own humorous content themselves.
The main research goal is the exploration of political memes using popular culture to raise public commentary on issues related to the political life of Greece.
More specifically, this paper explores how political memes have been used by ordinary citizens to satirize and humorously comment on two political events: the visit of former President Barack Obama in November 2016 to the United States of America Athens, his meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras as well as his last trip to America and his meeting with current President Donald Trump at the White House in October 2017.
To achieve the research goal, thirty-nine memes were collected from the internet, which were then analyzed using the critical discourse analysis method.
The paper consists of two parts: the theoretical part, which includes the bibliographic review and the description of the research methodology and the research, which includes the critical analysis of the memes' speech.
The main theories presented are convergence theory and politics of humor. Emphasis is also placed on participatory culture, youth participation, participatory journalism, collective intelligence, and how this can be linked to the theory of convergence of the popular culture and the theory of humor policy.
In the second part follows the analytical presentation of the research. Starting from the theoretical background, through the critical analysis of the speech of political memes, it is attempted to answer the main research question and the sub-questions of the work. More specifically, starting from the basic research question: at what point does political intercourse meet political participation in popular culture, particularly in the case of satirical iconography in the social networks, is explored in what ways the background of the visit Barack Obama in Athens in 2016 and Alexis Tsipras' visit to the United States in 2017, as they were presented through social networks, can be considered as a sign of political engagement.
In addition, it is attempted to explore the public debate that memes set and the role of humor and satire in the case of commenting through the memes of the above visits and meetings.
Keywords:
convergence culture, politics of humour, memes, Tsipras, Obama
