‘South Africa Laughs in the Face of Coronavirus’: Presidential Addresses, Face Masks, and Memetic Humour in South Africa

Gibson, Sarah

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-79735-5_14

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 41 publications

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“…Although COVID-19 is a worldwide pandemic, the political, medical, and cultural responses to mask wearing, knowledge-making, and knowledge-claims about mask use are made in particular national (e.g., Chen 2021;Gibson 2021;Li and Nicholson Jr. 2020;Van Gorp 2021), transnational (e.g., Ma and Zhan 2020;Zhang 2021), and local cultural settings (e.g., Padilla 2020). Mask use is, in other words, "highly variable and embedded, within cultures, within countries and geopolitical entities, within class structures, within professional and educational contexts" (Knowles, Pearl, and Ray 2022, 119).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Masking (Not Masking) Up: An STS Visual-Intersectional Approach to Understanding Publics and Science in Times of Rapid Change

Bell,

Grzanka,

Joyce

et al. 2023

Engaging STS

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In this paper we argue that a visual-intersectional approach can advance the field of science and technology studies (STS). Although there is a small but important body of work using visual methods in STS, it has rarely incorporated intersectional approaches. We use visual imagery about mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to illustrate the potential power of a visual-intersectional approach in STS. We chose masks for three reasons. First, debates about mask-wearing were rich with visual imagery, from home-made signs posted in homes and businesses to professionally designed and printed imagery circulated by public health agencies. Second, recommendations about face coverings outside of healthcare settings changed dramatically in the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing an opportunity to analyze how rapidly changing scientific recommendations were debated in the public sphere. Finally, as masks entered the public sphere, they quickly became evocative technologies, deeply imbued with cultural and political meanings. By focusing on signs about masks in the United States, we demonstrate how integrating visual methods of data collection and an intersectional, visual analytical lens can strengthen STS by developing deeper understandings of (a) publics and science in times of uncertainty, (b) public health as a distinct form of scientific expertise, and (c) the role of humor and place-specific messaging in science. We close with analytic priorities for future research on mask use that could advance STS theories of the collective construction of scientific knowledge and productively inform the development of public health interventions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Masking (Not Masking) Up: An STS Visual-Intersectional Approach to Understanding Publics and Science in Times of Rapid Change

Bell,

Grzanka,

Joyce

et al. 2023

Engaging STS

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Meme-Mediated Humorous Communication

Yus

2023

Pragmatics of Internet Humour

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Memetization of the president’s speeches to the nation in South Africa as popular rhetoric elements

Gil-Torres,

Mall,

Muringa

2024

Northern Lights: Film &Amp; Media Studies Yearbook

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The proliferation of political memes in recent years allows us to assume that they are a new tool of political communication and that social networks increase the possibilities for civil society to express opinions and intervene in the debate on matters of public interest. This article aims to examine the memes that have been disseminated on Twitter since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa in the wake of the president’s speeches to the nation to discover whether one can speak of a political rhetoric in memes and their argumentation. To this end, the research uses a qualitative-quantitative approach to classify the taxonomy of memes according to their content, combining the thematic classification of memes and the typology of images in digital discourse to discover the existence of the use of popular political rhetoric. The final sample comprises 351 memes, and the analysis shows that they used humour as a means of escape rather than as an effective way of sending political messages. Thus, the results reflect the existence of a resignification of popular culture that transcends memes as persuasive elements based on the inertia of popular rhetoric in contemporary political communication.

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‘South Africa Laughs in the Face of Coronavirus’: Presidential Addresses, Face Masks, and Memetic Humour in South Africa

Cited by 3 publications

References 41 publications

Masking (Not Masking) Up: An STS Visual-Intersectional Approach to Understanding Publics and Science in Times of Rapid Change

Masking (Not Masking) Up: An STS Visual-Intersectional Approach to Understanding Publics and Science in Times of Rapid Change

Meme-Mediated Humorous Communication

Memetization of the president’s speeches to the nation in South Africa as popular rhetoric elements

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