Abstract

PINTO SANCHEZ, Eduardo; HABER GUERRA, Yamile  and  CAUSSE CATHCART, Mercedes. Memes as an expression of the multimodal resistance discourse of feminist cyberactivism. ARCIC [online]. 2022, vol.11, n.29, pp. 2-20.  Epub Aug 01, 2022. ISSN 2411-9970.

The creation and circulation of memes has become a powerful communication tool to protest on the Internet, thus becoming a nerve center for feminist struggles in sociodigital networks with the purpose of eroding gender stereotypes and spreading their aspirations. From a qualitative perspective, we set out as an objective to characterize the multimodal resistance discourse of the cyberactivist collective Memes feministas expressed through the memes shared on their Facebook and Twitter pages. For this, a transdisciplinary theoretical proposal was used that included Critical Discourse Analysis, image semiotics and studies on multimodal social semiotics. During the selection of the corpus, an intentional non-probabilistic sampling was used to choose 23 memes shared between 2015 and 2020 in which highly critical points of view on machismo and heteropatriarchal culture coincided. The use of various semiotic resources was verified from the orchestration of photographic, linguistic and visual modes in the search to optimize the communicative intention of the statement. Likewise, themes, characteristics and the use of ideological discourse strategies were identified in order to convey a dichotomous image between feminism and/or women and the patriarchal order and/or men. In general, the meme is ratified as an alternative means of expression to the hegemonic discourses from which the discourses of social and political cyberactivism can be articulated, thus being an essential component in contemporary participatory digital culture.

Keywords : meme; multimodal discourse; resistance discourse; critical discourse analysis; feminism.

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