Memes and Politics in the UK

“This landmark book is the first to fully explain how memes have become a critical part of UK politics. Through rich and convincing empirical analysis, Southern reveals how digital humour is transforming citizen participation, elite communication, and the very nature of political discourse. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the evolution of digital political culture and its profound impact on democracy.” –     James Dennis, Researcher at Lusófona University, Portugal  “From ‘shitposts’ to ‘Karen memes’, political communication is changing and Rosalynd Southern is a lively guide to the pithy world of memes.  A cutting-edge study that deserves to be read. — Stephen Coleman, Emeritus Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds, UK In 2015, a story emerged alleging that then Prime Minister David Cameron had placed ‘a private part of his anatomy’ into the mouth of a dead pig’s head during an initiation ceremony at the University of Oxford. Upon this allegation breaking, social media erupted with a plethora of memes and jokes about the incident, which became known as ‘piggate’. Although there had been move towards jovial talk of politics on social media prior to this, the episode seemed to distil the practice and precipitate a new era of near-constant humorous online reaction to political events. Considering this context, this book will assess how memetic practices have shaped political communication and culture in the past decade-plus and the consequences thereof. It will do so from four perspectives, ranging from a focus on ordinary citizens, a group of online activists, a specific case study of a key satirist and, finally, focusing on how elites have deployed these practices.