By any memes necessary? Small political acts, incidental exposure and memes during the 2017 UK general election

McLoughlin, LDG; Southern, R

Abstract

Following the 2017 UK general election, there was much debate about the so-called ‘youthquake’, or increase in youth turnout (YouGov). Some journalists claimed it was the ‘. . . memes wot won it’. This article seeks to understand the role of memes during political campaigns. Combining meta-data and content analysis, this article aims to answer three questions. First, who creates political memes? Second, what is the level of engagement with political memes and who engages with them? Finally, can any meaningful political information be derived from memes? The findings here suggest that by far the most common producers of memes were citizens suggesting that memes may be a form of citizen-initiated political participation. There was a high level of engagement with memes with almost half a million shares in our sample. However, the level of policy information in memes was low suggesting they are unlikely to increase political knowledge.

Citation

McLoughlin, L., & Southern, R. (2021). By any memes necessary? Small political acts, incidental exposure and memes during the 2017 UK general election. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 23(1), 60-84. https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120930594

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Jul 14, 2020
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 22, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 22, 2020
• Journal: The British Journal Of Politics And International Relations
• Print ISSN: 1369-1481
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-856X
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 60-84
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120930594
• Keywords: Political Science and International Relations, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120930594
• Related Public URLs: http://bpi.sagepub.com/
• Additional Information: Additional Information : ** From Crossref via Jisc Publications Router **Journal IDs: pissn 1369-1481; eissn 1467-856X **History: issued 14-07-2020; published_online 14-07-2020