ONLINERPOL is commissioning a project on Internet memes and the politics of national belonging. Internet memes play a crucial role in shaping digitally mediated political discourses. They have elements of humor and wit, but also propaganda and influence. What messages and themes are they sending out? Who produces them? What narratives do they elicit? We invite proposals for a short-term project to take up some of these questions.
The project will aim to analyze sampled memes circulating on a social media platform (Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter or Instagram) that explicitly engage themes of national belonging and religious politics. Memes that feed online debates on religious identities and national imagination will be of particular interest. Representations of religion-secular-liberal positions as well as religious pluralism in relation to national imagination on Internet memes are the core focus. The project will ideally cover two areas of analysis:
visual content, framing and techniques of digital circulation
narratives about the origin, and contexts of production, reception and circulation