Echo chambers and memes in the countryside

In recent days, the news media have been reporting the demonstrations taking place during the liberal leader’s campaign outings, Justin trudeau. We see angry citizens expressing their dissension in relation to the political choices of the Prime Minister and also to the need to be vaccinated or to obtain a vaccination passport to have access to certain places and services.

These rallies are facilitated by social media, which makes it possible to quickly reach groups of people with similar interests. These are the famous echo chambers that several researchers speak of.

What are echo chambers? These are arenas, especially in social media, where people are only confronted with opinions or beliefs that resemble or correspond to their own. In doing so, their perspectives on the world are confirmed and, in some cases, strengthened, and other ideas are then not taken into account.

Various political messages circulate in these echo chambers, and more widely on social media, which can contribute to polarization and feed disinformation.

In some cases, these messages are truthful and address issues that are rigorously debated in the campaign. Let us think here of the work carried out by all the fact-checking sites which allow voters to face complex issues, the environment for example, or to compare the programs and the promises of the parties.

Culture of participation

There are other modes of political communication, used in the countryside and outside, that deserve some attention: political Internet memes. If you have an account in any of the social media platforms, you have certainly been exposed to pictures or videos that discuss politics.

These images are called memes and are very popular. They feature politicians, often with text imprinted on the image. The most represented characters are often the leaders – or well-known figures of popular culture -, from Kermit the Frog to Captain Kirk, from the American series. Star Trek, passing by the famous “distracted boyfriend”.

Each character addresses different ideas or references. Memes are part of the culture of participation, where visuals and images reign supreme and messages are short and focused. If politicians use social media to communicate with segments of their electorate – this is the case with TikTok for Jagmeet Singh -, citizens do the same with political memes and thus participate in debates on living together.

In the memes circulating during this election campaign, different political messages are present. Some encourage people to vote or discuss some of the campaign issues with irony or sarcasm.

Others, more critical, show the paradoxes of the leaders’ speeches and their posture. A meme, for example, compares the prices of watches of the leaders of the LPC, CPC and NDP, thus illustrating the proximity to the citizens ofErin O’Toole, whose watch is only worth $ 529.

It would be easy to ignore these political messages. Yet they are fascinating from the point of view of their creation, their often impactful character and their circulation, which is facilitated by social media, but also in relation to what they say about politics.

Recent studies with colleagues Tamara Small and Fenwick McKelvey and students Simon Fitzbay and Colleen McCool, in particular, have shown that memes that discuss leaders address political issues, but also criticize the personalities of leaders. They delegitimize their decisions or their way of being.

Thanks to memes, it is possible to approach complex phenomena in a few words and images. They are thus powerful campaign tools allowing voters to rally around a cause or a question and to put issues on the agenda.

Thus, memes are new ways of being a participant in political life, of carrying a political discourse, of exchanging about key issues, of criticizing power. While they can polarize or misinform, they can also raise awareness of issues and arouse the interest of politically disillusioned citizens. They speak of the relationship of citizens with politics: of that of the citizens who create them, list them or relay them.

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