Internet memes: As a new form ofpolitical participation1. Introduction The term “meme” has been emerged in various spheres in a few studies, and it has been discussed with some applied research and cultural research (Hofstadter, 1985; Dawkins, 1976; Blackmore, 1999; Chesterman, 1997). As the basic unit of culture, meme plays an extremely important role in the reproduction of culture. Given this orientation, some researchers started to address and explore the relationship between meme and politics, argue that meme has a positive effect on the development of political. (Shifman, 2013, Milner, 2013). In the 21st century, the rise of digital media has changed the information dissemination ecological, as well as the way of thinking of people. With the advance of social media and digital technology, meme theory also need to adapt the new environment and focus on the present convergence for new field. Accordingly, the new branch of meme study has come out, which is internet meme. In this Internet age, a meme’s ability to reproduce and spread is gradually expanding, thus highlighted increasingly as the dominant force in transmission media, and playing an increasingly important role in the public domain in terms of the news public opinion and political communication. What’s more, websites like Know Your Meme, 4chan, Reddit and Tumblr are meme manufactures which have helped people produce thousands of memes. The internet meme has raised the pace of social political awareness and community building in cyberspace. Shifman (2013) defines that internet meme has threefunctions in terms of political participation: as forms of persuasion orpolitical advocacy, as grassroots action and as modes of expression and publicdiscussion. This paper builds on existing knowledge in the fields of internetmeme, based on Shifman’s work and combines with other’s studies to demonstratethat internet meme is a new form of political participation. At the same time,this paper will illustrate it from three aspects: as a persuasion way inelection, as a resistance of people (collection action) and as a publicdiscourse of political issues.BodyWhat is a meme?The definition of memein The Oxford English Dictionary is: an element of culture that may beconsidered to be passed on by non-genetic means, especially imitation. The term“meme” was created by Dawkins in his book “The selfish Gene” in 1976, when he triedto explain the culture evolution. He defined it as “small units of culture thatspread from person to person by copying or imitation” (Dawkins, 1989). Inaddition, he analogized meme with biological gene, considered that meme alsoevolved through coping(imitating), variating and selecting, like gene transmitsits genetic information to the next generation. A clear difference betweenthese two is that genes are the genetic factors of biology, while meme is thederivative of culture. Besides, gene propagates through heredity, a physicalprocess to replicate but meme through imitating, which is a mental process. Inhis work, he indicated that meme has three characters: 1) Heredity, the processof meme’s diffusion is heredity. For example, when one religion or belief ispropagating to others, the religion as a meme is acquired by people and copiedto their mind and continuing passed along to believers. 2) Variation, thecontents of meme by imitated are not the same, they could be changed. Forinstance, when people telling a story to others they will add or delete somedetails, which results in variation. 3) Selection, the ability of diffusion isvarying from different memes, some are easy to spread while some are not, theyare competing when being propagating, which is like the natural selection inbiologic theory (Dawkins, 1989). Despite some researcherscriticized that Dawkins has limited the culture in the sphere of biologic andsimplified human behavior later, it cannot be ignored that his efforts on theresearch of meme, which accentuates the realization of cultural gene. Next,Douglas Hofstadter put forwarded a new interdisciplinary subject “Memetics” in1985. This subject is based on the perspective of Darwinian evolution to studythe content of the mind, aiming to explore the social evolution model ofcultural information transmission (Hofstadter, 1985). Since then, the memeconcept has been discussed and accepted by various of subject: phycology,physiology, anthropology, linguistics and so on. For instance, DanielDennett, an American philosophy who agreed with the concept of meme, andapplied it into his book “Consciousness Explained” and “Darwin’s DangerousIdea” to interpret the mechanism of spiritual evolution (Vasiliki, 2014). Furthermore,Finland linguists and translation theorists Andrew Chesterman, combined memewith the British philosopher Karl Popper’s idea about the schema of knowledgeevolution, established the translation theory framework of the system by adescriptive study on the translation standard and strategies (Chesterman, 1997).In 1999, Susan Blackmore (1999) considered meme as an independent replicationfactor in her book “The Meme Machine”, suggested that whatever the form ofmemetic information is, it could be regarded as meme when it can be copied byimitate. Based on the previous studies, this paperadopts Shifman’s (2013) idea and apply it to the analyze. She describes thememe constituted with two principles: 1) looking at diffused units asincorporating several memetic dimensions namely, several aspects that peoplemay imitate; 2) understanding memes not as single entities that propagate well,but as groups of content units with common characteristics. 2.2 What is an internet meme?Meme has been widelyaccepted and applied to several subjects which has mentioned before, but itonly gets attentions of mass media researchers until 21 centuries (Davison,2012). According to Shifman (2013), she defines an Internet meme as: 1) a groupof digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/orstance; 2) that were created with awareness of each other; and 3) werecirculated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users. Generally,in the digital media era, the advancement of Internet and social networksenable people to acquire more information and accelerate the informationexchange. With the advent of web2.0 and platformlization, meme is activelyinvolved in the process of information dissemination, in terms of longevity,fecundity, and copy fidelity have been enhanced through internet, which regardas the three basic properties that help meme to spread successfully. Forlongevity, it is attributed to numerous archives, which can store dataindefinitely not rely on memory. For copy fidelity, it mainly because thedigitization allows lossless information transfer compared to traditionalmedia. For fecundity, due to the infrastructure, it can achieve the swiftdiffusion of any given message to numerous nodes. These facilitates thecreation and exchange of user-generate-consent, which emerges participation(Shifman, 2013). Apart from this, easier access to the Internet enables peopleto receive mounts of information every day, in comparison to the limitedinformation acquiring approaches in the past. Also, the speed of transmissionis no longer limited by the movement of individuals. Hence, it is necessary to paymore attention on internet meme, exploring its role on constructing shared valuesin contemporary digital cultures. As Shifman (2013) claimed, the internetmeme has three properties in the web2.0: 1) A gradual propagation fromindividuals to society. In other words, memes could shape the mindsets, formsof behavior, and actions of social groups. People can easier sharing andcommunicating in digital era, which facilitates the process of spreading memesfrom person to society; 2) Reproduction via copying and imitation. In thedigital world, people can spread content by forwarding, linking, or copying, theycan use some software like Photoshop and application like Snapseed to imitateand remixing instead of reproducing as well; and 3) Diffusion throughcompetition and selection. The internet magnifies the competition and selectionof meme. On the one hand, it allows researchers collect data and track theprocess of meme evolution. On the other hand, it offers users an opportunity tounderstanding and knowing the preference of choice relating to meme diffusion (Davison,2012). It is always mentions viral when talksabout internet memes, their differences and similarities are the major parts ofmeme research. This paper does not go in further with details about this, butindicates the mainly difference between viral and internet meme is that viralis consisted of single units while internet meme is a collection of text. In order to better analyzing, this paperfocus on the images form of internet memes, takes some images as example toillustrates the idea. Based on the studies of Knobel, Lankshear (2007) andKuipers (2005), internet memes can be divided into two categories: recycledimages and macros images. Recycled images have a template which build bynumerous imitations and “stable” images which include originalcontent and are passed along with transformation or not, as presented in Figure1 and Figure 2. Macros images usually constitute with a single image overlaidwith a white text written in capitals and express the humorous note, aspresented in Figure1.3 and Figure1.4. Figure.1 and Figure.2 Figure.3 and Figure. 4 2.3 Internet memes as a new form of political participationIn recent years, internet meme hasbeen constantly evolving into the political participation. This appeared to beattributed to the digital media. First it offers the opportunities for peopleto become the subject of expression, and then reducing the cost of politicalparticipation, especially for the young generation who are less likely toengaged in political activities (Anduiza, 2012). Second, public and politicalevents are more likely to be exaggerated than in the past with rapid spread inthe internet. Last, the so-called image politics according to Wilson (2000),image symbols have more vitality and tension than words. Since the visualimpact has more strong effects on emotion and could save the time for readingtoo much words, it is extremely easy to be used to participate in discussingpolitical issues, especially in sensitive areas. For this reason, theexaggerated effects and interesting composition of meme makes its transmissionhave powerful appeal, which makes the combination of both of them play the roleof two-way gain. Therefore, internet meme has built the bridge between citizensand political, as a new way to deconstruct by the form of image with humor togains serious political, build a unique participate system (Hristova, 2014). This paperclassified this political participation into three sub-items in terms offacilitates political participation according to Shifman’s work: 1) As a persuasionway in election; 2) As a resistance of people (collection action); and 3) As apublic discourse. Following will combining cases to analyze these threefunctions (Shifman, 2013).2.2.1 As a persuasive way in electionSocial media allows users to publishtheir opinions or ideas so that their friends, family, and strangers can readthese posts and comments back. And it is has been demonstrated that people aremore likely to believe in their friends and family, which makes the onlineideas become more convincible (Shifman, 2013). As a consequence, internet memethrough social media could influence people for their psychological cognition,behavior patterns and guide their recognition (Tay,2015). As politics move to the Internet where more andmore voters get their news and information with the trend of digitaltechnology. The politicians and their companies start to consider takingadvantage of internet meme to create great political profile with theirpersonalities and campaign slogans. In this way, enabled mobilizing votersoutside of official political discourses. A few studies consider politicianswho appear “cool” in the eyes of ordinary citizens to be rare successes (Tay,2015)The 2008 American Presidential electionis known for being the first modern Internet campaign, Shifman (2013) choosesthe “Obama Girl” video as an example of memes as political persuasion, explainsthat the video become widely popular due to it just focus on a praise of Obamanot talks about specific political issues. Here, this paper uses The Hope Memein 2008 American election as an example to analyze. This meme is the depictionof Barack Obama by artist Shepard Fairey (Figure 5), it has thousands ofreplications and then a vast number of users participated in creating their ownreplications (Figure 6 and Figure 7). This meme portrayed Obama as the idealcandidate and introducing a vision for the country, which triggered people’sapproval (Foster, 2014). Subsequently, Obama’s supporters enjoying creating newversions of the Hope Meme itself to show their stance (Seiffert, 2017). Withthe propagation of the hope meme, a climbing mount of people acknowledge theappearance of Obama even they do not participate in, they can see the images insocial media through their friends or families. Moreover, Obama’s campaignposted a LOLcat a few days before the 2012 election (Figure 8) to call onpeople to vote. This meme combing with the internet culture, the lol cultureand cute cat, make people perceived as Obama is proximity to the ordinarypeople. The fact is, Obama is a popular figure referred to in Internet memes,involved discussions and supportive commentaries (Tay, 2015).Figure.5 and Figure. 6 Figure.7 and Figure. 8 To give another example is the 2012American election, between Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton. On April 4, a memecontaining President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton postedon a Tumblr blog. It imagines an exchange between them, and Obama asking“whatchu doing?”, she responds, “Running the world” (Figure 9). In this image,Obama is lying down while reading, and seems relaxed, Clinton has a solemnexpression, and is busy with work. The post got a lot of attention and receivedthousands of notes. Clinton becomes a synonym of respectability, and arepresentation of female empowerment. Since then, her supporters involving intothis internet meme and imitate their own picture by change the text or content.(Figure 10 and Figure 11). The meme became a major part of Hillary Clinton’spositive cultural revival as a political figure, which was already seen asparticularly powerful in the 2016 presidential campaign. This has made her aviable candidate (Tay, 2015). Figures 9, 10 and 111 These examples have illustrated the useof internet memes as a persuasion way referred to political participation. Asan active social software, internet memes have a place in the politicalexpression of new media with the linking, forwarding and imitating, whichincreased the exposure of political figures. In the presidential election,candidates in the media show the image of appearance, and in the narration partis partly deciding the success or failure of his election (Foster, 2014).Politics in the media society is becoming more and more a performance, an actof creating an image. 2.3.2 As a resistance of people (collection action)Indeed, most of political memes are generally resistant to nature, and as we’ve seen, resistance itself is a critical mass mobilization. Shifman (2013) defines one function of memes is as grass-roots action with the example Occupy Wall Street online movement. The “Pepper Spray Cop” which shows a police officer spraying protesters with pepper spray. The “We are the 99%”, becomes one of the main visual markers of the on-the-ground Occupy Movement after it spread quickly online. They serve as a call to action for the protest to continue. Shifman indicates that the power of organization is declining, instead being replaced by massive, mobile social networks, which is collective action (Milner?2013). The background of the developing collective action cannot be separated from the remarkable rise of internet memes. First, the threshold is low and there is no need for technological skill to express and participate. Besides, image meme helps these protests go deeper with the visual effects. The most important thing is that internet meme allows the citizens to participate in collective action and at the same time can retain their individuality, since one of the character of meme is alter (Anduiza, 2012). There are several studieshas worked on the Occupy Wall Street, this paper will apply the collectiveaction in Facebook between China mainland and Taiwan in 2016 as a case study.This is the first internet meme and political participation refer to collectiveaction have been combined in public view in China. In January, Ziyu Zhou, amember of the south Korean women’s group, was accused by the artist An Huangabout Taiwan’s independence on Weibo, leading to a wave of public opinionagainst Ziyu Zhou. As the incident continued to heat up, then Ziyu Zhou issueda video on Facebook to apologize for the previous uproar. Celebrity Gengxin Linforwarded the apology to video, and said “apologized too suddenly anddidn’t have time to memorize the manuscript”, which caused Taiwanesenetizens and Chinese netizens started a debate in Lin’s Facebook. A few daysafter, it is said that 20 million Chinese young people have started acollective action to Facebook of Taiwan’s three media homepage. Noncitizenstake internet meme as main expression, showed a high degree of organization, toresist the independence of Taiwan (Tang, 2016). Asshowed in Figure 12, Figure 13 and Figure 14, these memes are from the Chinamainland, people try to use the beautiful scenes from China mainland and someironic words to resist the supportive of independence of Taiwan. The contentsof these meme are from traditional Chinese slogans, events with Chinesecharacteristics and political propaganda themes. On the one hand, it evokes thevalue recognition of people. On the other hand, they combined with familiarthings of public, which will have a greater influence on transmission. The mostimportant thing is, there are millions of people participate in this action,and post millions of images on Facebook, the homepage was full of images whichis powerful and spectacular. Figure.12 “invite Taiwan people to enjoy the beautiful China mainland scene.” Figure.13 “Follow me: Taiwan has been China’s territory since ancient times. You don’t know it’s okay. Figure. 14  “Don’t talk with a picture” These internet memesfrom the mass production by organizing, and hide the emotional expression inthe images, aim to use it to gain the attention occupation and presentspeople’s political stance of resist. According to sharing and remixing,transfer it into collective action, reflects the ability to participate innarrative construction and civic organization. Therefore, memes can be used asa tool of political participation in terms of turn the public opinionfragmentation into collective action (Tang, 2016).2.3.3 As a public discourse of political issuesSocial media is considered to be moreeffective in terms of information diffusion comparison to traditional media, itexpands the source of information and knowledge for people. People not only arethe receiver of the political information in network environment, they also area political message of reproducing and disseminator, which means everyone islikely to be the news publishers, and likely to be receiving information. The advantages of digital media including openness,virtualization, interactivity and timeliness build a great environment for thepublic discourse, and helping people freely communicate and express theiropinions. Therefore, net citizens are keen on discuss politic issues throughdigital media. The richness, floating and uncertainty of meme allow everyonerevolve around the image to construct the legal qualification and compete fortheir statements, thus it is easy to be used to participate in discuss sensitivepolitical issues (Hristova, 2014). They are now been a part of our internet culture,participating in a larger media and material ecosystem that helps shape thepolitical identity and political union. Meme could be a catalyst for politicaldiscussion (Shifman, 2013). Compared to the pastpeople have to talk or write articles to show their political stance while nowthey just can use an image. Like the Pepe the Frog, it becomes a Nazi Trumpsupporter and Alt-Right symbol (Figure 15). It attracts not only people’sattention, but also political discussions by its powerful visual impact. Somenotable examples are: The 2015 General election of United Kingdom, the image ofeating of candidate Miliband, which is different from his appearance onnewspapers, evokes a vast number of imitation of people with parody andridicule (Figure 16). After that, many politicians actively to follow thetrend, post out their own eating images to get attention and discussion. Thismeme is similar to the Sihao Bai in 2014, the mayor of New York city. He used aknife and fork in an undisciplined manner in an image (Figure 17), which made peoplequestioned his ability to govern because he has a more powerful appearance innewspaper than this image. Back to the Occupy Wall Street case, the Weare the 99% meme. It is widely popular in Facebook and has numerousreplicators. At first, most of them are from the 99% people to support withfixed images, annotation or remix (Figure 18). Gradually, the 1% peopleparticipate in and post their own images with the text “tax me” or “redistribute”(Figure 19). At the same time, they got mounted of comments along with (Milner,2013). This meme engages in multiple discussions and arguments on Facebook.Figure 15Figure 16Figure 17Figure 18Figure 19With the propagationcharacteristics of memes, public discourse is totally different than the past.The increasing of complex hotspot issues duration, degree of attention andtransformation mechanism, a serial of crisis involved in, the more complexissues appear at the same time including and the increase of average time ofthe single issue are catalyzing the public discourse with political issues indigital era. In another way, internet memes as apolitical catharsis, it represents a strong demand of citizens for politicalparticipation. Significantly, when people engaged in this discussion ratherthan sharing or forwarding, it has more powerful since it empowers citizens toshare their opinions of political stances (Shifman, 2013).3. ConclusionIn the era of media, the process ofpolitical participation can be well deserved to internet meme, which from thebottom to top, allows people to have the chance to get involved in politicalactivities. The three basic characters of meme including heredity, variationand selection have been enhanced in digital media, and that is the major reasonwhy the internet meme could leave a great influence on political participation.From one hand, internet meme as the persuasion way mainly reflected on thepolitical elections, help politicians to build positive image thus get voter’sapproval. From another hand, it allows ordinary people to resist through masteryof dominance on the spread of images, not only can modify the content of thememe, also can undertake production and innovation. Besides, it offers a newway for net citizens to seek affirmation and self-expression in political communities.The future study of internet meme could focus on the effects, like how to measure the effects of internet memes on elections or collective action. As a new way to participate in politics, internet meme has its own advantages and it is deserved to study in the future.ReferencesAnduiza, E., Jensen, M.J. and Jorba L., eds. (2012). Digital Media and Political Engagement Worldwide: A Comparative Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Blackmore, S. (1999).The Meme Machine, New York: OxfordUniversity Press Inc.Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of translation. 1sted. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.Davison, P. (2012). The Language of Internet Memes.Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. New York:Oxford University Press Inc., pp.189-202.Foster, B. J. (2014). 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