Memetic Communication in Digital Culture
Summary
Memetic communication refers to the creation, adaptation and circulation of cultural units—so-called “memes”—across digital environments. These units can take diverse forms, including still images, short videos, animated GIFs, typographic designs or hybrid multimodal artefacts that combine visual, textual and sonic elements. In contemporary networked publics, memes serve as vehicles for humour, political commentary, collective coping and identity formation. Their rapid replication and iterative transformation are enabled by platform affordances such as easy sharing, remix tools and algorithmic recommendation. As a result, memes often evolve through a process of participatory culture, where communities co-author and repurpose content to reflect shifting social contexts and values. This dynamism confers both creative potential and risk: memes can foster solidarity and public discourse, but they may also circulate misinformation, reinforce stereotypes or facilitate polarisation. The global reach of digital platforms means that local references may traverse linguistic and cultural boundaries, undergoing semantic drift as they intersect with new communities. Understanding memetic communication thus requires attention to technical infrastructures, semiotic practices and the socio-political landscapes in which memes emerge and resonate.
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Memetic Communication in Digital Culture publication trend
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Technical terms
Memetic communication: The process by which discrete units of cultural information are created, shared and transformed in digital networks.
Multimodal discourse: An analytical framework that examines how meaning emerges through the interaction of language, image, sound and other semiotic modes within a single artefact.
Participatory culture: A digital environment in which users actively contribute to, remix and redistribute content rather than passively consuming media.
Semantic drift: The gradual change in meaning or connotation of a meme as it circulates across different communities and contexts.
References
- Based and confused: Tracing the political connotations of a memetic phrase across the web. Big Data & Society (2023).
- One Platform, a Thousand Worlds: On Twitter Irony in the Early Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy. Social Media + Society (2020).
- Memes as snapshots of participation: The role of digital amateur activists in authoritarian regimes. New Media & Society (2020).
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