even this one.
political memes serve as a potent form of propaganda, irrespective of the viewpoint they espouse or the degree of nuance they convey. the term “propaganda” itself is morally neutral*; it’s the adherence to facts, level of honesty, and underlying goals of either empowering or oppressing that determine the moral value of political propaganda. thus, the essence lies not in the mere act of influencing opinions but in the integrity and intentions behind the message conveyed.
this principle also applies to other terms including “shill” “bot” and others. for example, calling someone spreading pro-maga sentiment a “russian bot” achieves little rhetorically and is essentially an ad hominem. more effective approaches might highlight how such behavior is rooted in protecting the status quo of violence against vulnerable communities.
*****or at least the morally neutral definition can and will be used against you if you make the error of not engaging with the actual wicked of wicked propaganda. this is a post about semantics, see the faq below.
tldr call them out for their shit, not just for how they are doing it.
caveat, of course, do not feed the trolls. calling out trolls for their behavior is effective because it encourages dismissal of their behavior altogether in the form of moderator reports and blocking.
FAQ: Isn’t this just semantics?
yes, and intentionally so. semantics exist and are useful to engage with when it comes to countering the malicious propaganda of bad actors.
calling out the propaganda itself rather than its malicious intent or falsehoods only scratches the surface of the issue. to effectively counter propaganda, one must expose the underlying agenda driving it. focusing solely on the term “propaganda” risks missing the broader context and allowing the harmful narrative to persist unchecked.
Ive come back to this post several times over the last twenty four hours. It took me several reading and combing through the comments to gain clarity on your thesis. And still, I’m not 100% sure I’ll represent it well.
As I understanding it,
I think your ultimate conclusion is correct. Attack the structure of the argument and not the fact that it is being presented.
However, I think you’ve flattened the negative connotation of propaganda so it ends up being indistinct from media bias or even an individual publically sharing their position. I don’t think you do anything to support the need for this shift.
Second, memes by nature and contextually thin. They are a pathos based argument relying on, usually, outrage and addressing only people who agree with you. This, I think,would separate it from some of the above conceptual neighbors. So being conceptually thin, a lot of what supports the argument is hidden and then difficult to deal with.
All in all, while agree that’s how to deal with it, I’m not sure memes are necessary worth the argument, either structurally or emotionally. I’m still on the fence about it because the occasional meme seems to break through into public sentimental consciousness. But picking that out is difficult. And by the time that level is reached, dealing with it logically and not pathetically. Ridicule might be a better approach.
thanks for your comment. good analysis and i appreciate your critique of how seriously i am taking this. i could definitely use some levity as there is variance to the degree of “propaganda-ness” a given post is. nevertheless, i still stand by my overall position of self-awareness, than any and all can both participate in and be influenced by propoganda from all sides of a conversation.
if you have seen this meme
essentially all im trying to do here is extend awareness that memes are included in this reality.
few things:
Sorry for this incomplete reply, but I read this much earlier and just haven’t had time to address. But I’d love for a compelling argument for #0. I’m open to it, but lean strongly towards it being over represented in online spaces with some tragic spillover events. Relatively, it’s spillover are of course horrible, but there are traditional forms of propaganda like a trump rally that presents an immediate, festering danger that spans several thousand or more people willing to act.
You’re seeking a direct cause-effect relationship as evidence, but it’s often a longer chain of events, akin to dominos falling.
Take the “RIGHT WING GRIFTER destroys FEMINAZI” meme on mid-2010s YouTube, for instance. Did these videos directly incite violence against women? Unprovable. Did they significantly alter the prevailing sentiment among young men, fostering behaviors that normalize violence? Indisputably.
Another instance is the stochastic terrorism of Libs of TikTok. While not directly inciting violence, this account has indirectly resulted in literal bomb threats.
Not all serious matters are as overt as a MAGA or Nazi rally. All memes are a form of speech with the potential to effect change. Some speech and memes are hateful and violent.
Consider your example of a Trump rally. Do you believe everyone just showed up one day to support him? Of course not. Persuasive media, including FOX News and Facebook, played a role. Racist, sexist, and xenophobic memes also doubtless played a part for many. Hence my conclusion, memes have the potential to he deadly serious.
I’d be open to statistical cohort analysis demonstrating construct validity for a population when a threshold exposure to memes create a set of results. Which is to say, this group of people, when spending time online in these meme heavy sites are more likely to engage in certain behaviors relative to their peers who don’t. The reason I’m saying this is because it’s hard to isolate memes are being more influential than other forms or propaganda.
Secondly, let’s assume the effect is large, what is the relative size of that population to other populations who may have be exposed to a set of propaganda that has a smaller effect?
None of this is to say that propaganda shouldn’t be taken seriously. It should. But where to address it and how to address it become a crucial question. Memes exist within a complex web of media through which propaganda is distributed. You acknowledge this fact in your reply. Your conclusion that “memes have the potential to be deadly serious” isn’t clearly differentiated from “propagandas have the potential to be deadly serious”.
i uh… what is your goal with this lol. is this some new form of trolling im not aware of? you had my position right earlier but now you have left that and are building some crazy strawmen that i don’t stand by. here’s one:
not my intent. the italicized statement above i neither believe to be true nor have ever implied to be. you came up with that on your own.
moreover:
just… huh? what does “clearly differentiated” mean? again you’re putting words in my mouth or something? my position can be expressed quite simply as:
all propaganda can be serious
all political memes are propaganda
therefore, all political memes can be serious
i feel like this is pretty straightforward. that’s a valid syllogism, so if the first two premises are true the conclusion must necessarily also be true.
this thread is getting weird. i don’t know what’s going on and i feel that one of us is quite out of our depth here. i’m not a researcher i am a dumb person who posts memes to the internet sorry if i somehow came across otherwise lol
Sorry. Didn’t mean to unintentionally troll. I just don’t understand the value of focusing on memes specifically over propaganda in general.
I wish you well on your journey and I hope you can forgive me for being too pedantic. Cheers!
no problem. i focus on memes cuz they are my “thing.” its not only a way i socialize with my friends, but it’s also a way that i learn about the world and the human condition. i know that sounds stupid and over-serious but i mean it genuinely.
id never ask anyone else to involuntarily take up the same specific relationship to memes as i do, this post is only me sharing information which i have found to be generally valuable when it comes to the political subset of memes. cheers :)
#1 point taken.
#2 I think we agree fundamentally. But I’m not sure what you mean by “bad” in “bad propaganda” when addressing it through pathos like ridicule. You, if I recall correctly, constructed the bad through logical means. Address these logical bads through pathos seems unclear to me.
#3 I think I get what you’re saying, but I think the premise escapes me. Are there those who are saying that memes have neutral value content? I understand that all memes are propaganda and their framing is the issue, but all propaganda is potentially dangerous.