After the hashtag #MeTooInChina was blocked by Chinese authorities in mid-January, social media users made creative use of nicknames and emojis to evade censorship and highlight harassment.
The term “meme” was coined in 1976. Today, these cultural artefacts have gone viral, and are redrawing the boundaries of acceptable political discourse.
A scholar of visual culture sees a transition happening online as the alt-right reinterprets images of police shootings to push back against the gains made by Black Lives Matter.
This scientific field suggests people have been passing along memes since long before the birth of the internet. What makes one bit of culture take off, while another sinks from sight?
We all use rhetorical structures. But, unless we’re skilled in their use, as politicians and advertisers clearly are, we don’t necessarily grasp their full manipulative power.
News that the Conservative Party has been spending more than £100,000 a month on Facebook advertising has its supporters and rivals all wondering if this is money well spent. It seems like a lot of money…
On May 26, the day after Ukraine elected Petro Poroshenko its president, a meme surfaced on the Russian Internet (or RuNet, as it’s colloquially known) depicting Ukraine as a chocolate bar. A reference…
Now that every celebrity under the sun and every Facebook user has posted a video of themselves getting wet, it appears we have reached peak ice bucket. A trend that started as a drive to raise awareness…
Rick Astley, 80s pop singer and unlikely king of internet memes, is dead. Or at least the most persistent song in his catalogue is. Or at least its most popular unofficial YouTube upload is. Or at least…
Urban legends get around, but we don’t really understand why. We conducted a study to explain how misinformation spreads surprisingly fast and why people feel compelled to share it. There are many urban…