Document Type : Original Article
Author
Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University
Abstract
The present study investigates selected Egyptian memes that focus on the portrayal of mothers, drawn from a number of highly-followed pages on three social networks: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The study adopts a multimodal critical discourse analysis approach, based on the theoretical frameworks by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), Machin and Mayr’s (2012), and Serafini and F. Reid (2019) to identify the semiotic and thematic aspects in a pool of 200 memes. Using a mixed-method approach, the findings reveal that those memes, which are viewed by millions of users, share commonalities regarding their themes, visual elements, kinds of participants, participants’ posture, facial expressions, and their social roles in the domestic context. Although the primary purpose of the selected memes is to ridicule the behavior of mothers, create a sense of togetherness between the in-group of the meme producers and consumers, and elicit laughter at the social norms of the family institution symbolized by the image of the mothers and their relationship with their children, this study proposes that, ideologically, the selected memes convey broader discourses. On the surface, unlike other mass media where mothers are marginal to the main story, in the world of Egyptian memes, the mother takes a leading role. The findings, nevertheless, uncover how the male gaze is still controlling the representation of women online. Further, surprisingly, the memes mask underlying crucial social issues and power relations in the Egyptian families of the dominant online groups.
Keywords
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