This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the co... more This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the combination of the polysemy inherent to ironic humor and new decontextualized digital environments entails greater potential for misinterpretation, thus turning humorous interactions into segregating tools. Using the case of left-wing mockery of a far-right-wing group in Israel, I trace the ways in which online irony serves as a means for social consolidation and differentiation. Findings indicate that the combination of medium (Facebook), keying (ironic humor), and content (social divides) works to empower one group and marginalize the other, potentially deepening existing social gaps. In addition, I show how this triangle leads to the construction of a new overarching social division between intellect (associated with left-wingers) and physicality (associated with right-wingers). Finally, I discuss the implications of social divides for our understanding of relations between irony and power structures in digital environments.
Social media constitute a fertile though challenging arena for the use of ironic humor. A combina... more Social media constitute a fertile though challenging arena for the use of ironic humor. A combination of facilitating and hindering factors turns the production and identification of irony in this sphere into a complex venture, positioning it as a powerful tool in consolidating group boundaries. The main aims of this paper are to identify the markers of ironic humor on social media and to explicate their workings within the dynamics of digital interactions. Existing literature about ironic markers addresses mostly face-to-face and mass mediated interactions, while there is a gap in our understanding of the production and interpretation of irony in the unique communicative conditions of social media. An analysis of a bilingual corpus of successful and failed ironic utterances extracted from five social network sites yielded a novel typology of five ironic markers: platform, participants, style, intra-textual content, and contextual knowledge. These markers both resemble and deviate from features of irony in non-digital settings. Media affordances often allow access to necessary complementary information, yet such forensic activity is only accessible to active users, who recognize the need for further investigation of the meant. Hence, using certain types of ironic markers forms utterances that are decipherable to some audiences but opaque to others. In this sense, the marking of digital irony and its decoding both rely on group boundaries and plays a central role in their delineation. We conclude by evaluating the roles of this new regime of ironic markers in processes of boundary work.
This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the co... more This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the combination of the polysemy inherent to ironic humor and new decontextualized digital environments entails greater potential for misinterpretation, thus turning humorous interactions into segregating tools. Using the case of left-wing mockery of a far-right-wing group in Israel, I trace the ways in which online irony serves as a means for social consolidation and differentiation. Findings indicate that the combination of medium (Facebook), keying (ironic humor), and content (social divides) works to empower one group and marginalize the other, potentially deepening existing social gaps. In addition, I show how this triangle leads to the construction of a new overarching social division between intellect (associated with left-wingers) and physicality (associated with right-wingers). Finally, I discuss the implications of social divides for our understanding of relations between irony and power structures in digital environments.
Internet memes are digital texts—verbal, visual, or audial—that share common attributes and under... more Internet memes are digital texts—verbal, visual, or audial—that share common attributes and undergo variations by multiple users. They are created with awareness of one another, and they require prior acquaintance for proper production and consumption, as the repetitive (or memetic) element of the text often incorporates coded cultural information essential for proper interpretation. The term meme has been ascribed to the repetitive component of these texts, to each version based on that constant component, or to the entire corpus of texts comprising the different versions. Although the term predates its online incarnation by several decades, the Internet (Web 2.0 in particular) constitutes a fertile ground for the proliferation of the memetic practice. This entry opens with a brief etymological overview of the evolution of the term Internet memes, followed by a description of its popular and academic uses. It concludes with a discussion of the significant dialectics between the memetic practice and the Internet, and the social roles of Internet memes within participatory culture.
In September 2010, a video titled “It Gets Better” was uploaded to YouTube, responding to suicide... more In September 2010, a video titled “It Gets Better” was uploaded to YouTube, responding to suicides of gay teens who had suffered from homophobic bullying. Before long, thousands of Internet users added their own versions of the clip, creating a mass appeal to young people while simultaneously negotiating the norms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) collective identity. Conceptualizing this body of videos as an Internet meme, we examine the extent to which participants imitate or alter textual components presented in previous videos. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of 200 clips shows that in an arena ostensibly free of formal gatekeepers, participants tend to police themselves, toeing the line with conformist norms. We also identify domains of potential subversion, related not only to the content of the videos but mainly to the forms facilitated by digital media.
This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the co... more This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the combination of the polysemy inherent to ironic humor and new decontextualized digital environments entails greater potential for misinterpretation, thus turning humorous interactions into segregating tools. Using the case of left-wing mockery of a far-right-wing group in Israel, I trace the ways in which online irony serves as a means for social consolidation and differentiation. Findings indicate that the combination of medium (Facebook), keying (ironic humor), and content (social divides) works to empower one group and marginalize the other, potentially deepening existing social gaps. In addition, I show how this triangle leads to the construction of a new overarching social division between intellect (associated with left-wingers) and physicality (associated with right-wingers). Finally, I discuss the implications of social divides for our understanding of relations between irony and power structures in digital environments.
Social media constitute a fertile though challenging arena for the use of ironic humor. A combina... more Social media constitute a fertile though challenging arena for the use of ironic humor. A combination of facilitating and hindering factors turns the production and identification of irony in this sphere into a complex venture, positioning it as a powerful tool in consolidating group boundaries. The main aims of this paper are to identify the markers of ironic humor on social media and to explicate their workings within the dynamics of digital interactions. Existing literature about ironic markers addresses mostly face-to-face and mass mediated interactions, while there is a gap in our understanding of the production and interpretation of irony in the unique communicative conditions of social media. An analysis of a bilingual corpus of successful and failed ironic utterances extracted from five social network sites yielded a novel typology of five ironic markers: platform, participants, style, intra-textual content, and contextual knowledge. These markers both resemble and deviate from features of irony in non-digital settings. Media affordances often allow access to necessary complementary information, yet such forensic activity is only accessible to active users, who recognize the need for further investigation of the meant. Hence, using certain types of ironic markers forms utterances that are decipherable to some audiences but opaque to others. In this sense, the marking of digital irony and its decoding both rely on group boundaries and plays a central role in their delineation. We conclude by evaluating the roles of this new regime of ironic markers in processes of boundary work.
This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the co... more This article explores the use of irony for boundary work in social media. It suggests that the combination of the polysemy inherent to ironic humor and new decontextualized digital environments entails greater potential for misinterpretation, thus turning humorous interactions into segregating tools. Using the case of left-wing mockery of a far-right-wing group in Israel, I trace the ways in which online irony serves as a means for social consolidation and differentiation. Findings indicate that the combination of medium (Facebook), keying (ironic humor), and content (social divides) works to empower one group and marginalize the other, potentially deepening existing social gaps. In addition, I show how this triangle leads to the construction of a new overarching social division between intellect (associated with left-wingers) and physicality (associated with right-wingers). Finally, I discuss the implications of social divides for our understanding of relations between irony and power structures in digital environments.
Internet memes are digital texts—verbal, visual, or audial—that share common attributes and under... more Internet memes are digital texts—verbal, visual, or audial—that share common attributes and undergo variations by multiple users. They are created with awareness of one another, and they require prior acquaintance for proper production and consumption, as the repetitive (or memetic) element of the text often incorporates coded cultural information essential for proper interpretation. The term meme has been ascribed to the repetitive component of these texts, to each version based on that constant component, or to the entire corpus of texts comprising the different versions. Although the term predates its online incarnation by several decades, the Internet (Web 2.0 in particular) constitutes a fertile ground for the proliferation of the memetic practice. This entry opens with a brief etymological overview of the evolution of the term Internet memes, followed by a description of its popular and academic uses. It concludes with a discussion of the significant dialectics between the memetic practice and the Internet, and the social roles of Internet memes within participatory culture.
In September 2010, a video titled “It Gets Better” was uploaded to YouTube, responding to suicide... more In September 2010, a video titled “It Gets Better” was uploaded to YouTube, responding to suicides of gay teens who had suffered from homophobic bullying. Before long, thousands of Internet users added their own versions of the clip, creating a mass appeal to young people while simultaneously negotiating the norms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) collective identity. Conceptualizing this body of videos as an Internet meme, we examine the extent to which participants imitate or alter textual components presented in previous videos. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of 200 clips shows that in an arena ostensibly free of formal gatekeepers, participants tend to police themselves, toeing the line with conformist norms. We also identify domains of potential subversion, related not only to the content of the videos but mainly to the forms facilitated by digital media.
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