The Internet is a space where the harassment of women and marginalised groups online has attracted the attention of both academic and popular press. Feminist research has found that instances of online sexism and harassment are often reframed as “acceptable” by constructing them as a form of humour. Following this earlier research, this present paper explores a uniquely technologically-bound type of humour by adopting a feminist, social-constructionist approach to examine the content of popular Internet memes. Using thematic analysis on a sample of 240 image macro Internet memes (those featuring an image with a text caption overlaid), we identified two broad, overarching themes – Technological Privilege and Others. Within the analysis presented here, complex and troubling constructions of gendered identity in online humour are explored, illustrating the potential for the othering and exclusion of women through humour in technological spaces. We argue that this new iteration of heteronormative, hegemonic masculinity in online sexism, couched in “irony” and “joking”, serves to police, regulate and create rightful occupants and owners of such spaces.

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Opening with this beautifully appropriate quote from Castells (2002, p. 1), "The Internet is the fabric of our lives," The Internet, part of the Understanding Qualitative Research series, is a compact book brimming with useful advice on designing, conducting, and writing qualitative research on the Internet. Though not a text aimed specifically at researchers in psychology, The Internet contains a wealth of information useful to both novice researchers and those wishing to experiment with qualitative, Internet-based research in psychology.Chapter 2 provides an engaging introduction that makes the case for conducting qualitative research on the Internet, drawing on Hine's personal experiences with research (particularly ethnographic work) in the sociology of science and technology. This thoughtprovoking primer lays the groundwork for the rest of the book, hinting at issues around ethics, data sources, and appropriate tools for collection and collaboration. Following this, the book is split into five chapters that address various aspects of writing about qualitative research on the Internet: from writing the initial proposal through to exploring innovative ways of disseminating the results.In the second chapter, the focus is on writing research proposals, providing a practical and useful breakdown of exactly what needs to be included in a research proposal involving the Internet. This chapter will be particularly useful to students and new researchers in psychology because it highlights several potential pitfalls and difficulties one might encounter when writing a research proposal on any given topic, not specifically one focused on the Internet. For example, readers are invited to consider not only how they will access and collect their data, but how they will ensure that it is rich enough to stand up to qualitative analysis.Chapter 2 also encourages researchers to consider typical issues around, for example, how to identify and sample a population, how to collect and archive research data, and ethical issues of the study that is being planned. However, these typical concerns come with an extra layer of complexity when dealing with a piece of Internet research. Hine points out that researchers may need to familiarize themselves with a particular research site or acquire a completely new skill set before being able to efficiently and effectively conduct their research. All the while, researchers are reminded to maintain the fluidity required in qualitative research while also ensuring that their proposals will withstand interrogation.Throughout chapter 2, Internet-based research is positioned as something that can sit comfortably within a larger body or field of qualitative research, not bound by a particular discipline. Researchers are encouraged to interrogate their references and pin down their rationale for a particular line of enquiry and reminded to look to research from before the so-called age of the Internet to strengthen their proposals and give their research credibility 340