Studying Visual Political Irony: the Case of Russia

Location

2101/2102

Format Type

Paper

Format Type

Paper

Start Date

January 2016

End Date

January 2016

Abstract

This paper analyzes a visual dimension of a computer-mediated political discourse in Russia. It demonstrates contextual features of a visual political irony based on a study of Internet communities and social networks, including LiveJournal, Facebook, Vkontakte, and some personal weblogs by caricature painters. The study includes material that was published over the last four years in the Internet (from January 2011 until December 2014, n = 1783). We also conducted 56 online interview with creators and distributors of the visual ironical content to understand better their intentions and interpretations of the pictures.

The results of the study show that in modern Russia, official political discourse is routinely confronted by challenges from Internet-based means of communication. Novel forms of political dialog have become widespread in new media, especially in terms of dialog initiated by “ordinary” people, who use irony and visual images to express their dissatisfaction with politicians’ activities. People ironically represent human and symbolic objects, situations and actions that destroy the moral and political principles of the citizens and both the rational and sensual expressions of love for the Motherland.

However, not all events are a matter of irony. Among the reviewed cases, these exceptions are political protests 2011-2013 and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis of 2014. These events remain “a reason to be serious” because they are perceived as the turning points in the development of the Russian state, as well as a private matter and personal pain.

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The examples of the analyzed pictures are represented in the Dropbox folder

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Jan 14th, 1:15 PM Jan 14th, 1:35 PM

Studying Visual Political Irony: the Case of Russia

2101/2102

This paper analyzes a visual dimension of a computer-mediated political discourse in Russia. It demonstrates contextual features of a visual political irony based on a study of Internet communities and social networks, including LiveJournal, Facebook, Vkontakte, and some personal weblogs by caricature painters. The study includes material that was published over the last four years in the Internet (from January 2011 until December 2014, n = 1783). We also conducted 56 online interview with creators and distributors of the visual ironical content to understand better their intentions and interpretations of the pictures.

The results of the study show that in modern Russia, official political discourse is routinely confronted by challenges from Internet-based means of communication. Novel forms of political dialog have become widespread in new media, especially in terms of dialog initiated by “ordinary” people, who use irony and visual images to express their dissatisfaction with politicians’ activities. People ironically represent human and symbolic objects, situations and actions that destroy the moral and political principles of the citizens and both the rational and sensual expressions of love for the Motherland.

However, not all events are a matter of irony. Among the reviewed cases, these exceptions are political protests 2011-2013 and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis of 2014. These events remain “a reason to be serious” because they are perceived as the turning points in the development of the Russian state, as well as a private matter and personal pain.