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Adrian Bryant

Dr. Rick Mott

ENG 500

10 May 2019

Rhetorical Analysis of Political Humor Through Meme

Politics, at the institutional and individual level, are the among the greatest rhetorical

arenas. Candidates, sitting officials, and citizens spin elaborate webs to convince the other side

of their misgivings or strengthen the steadfastness of their allies. Debate and recruitment occurs

in the form of television ads, paper flyers, discussion forums, opinion pieces, and other myriad

forms. Political persuasion thrives in diversity.

One such medium for political rhetoric that has grown over the past decade or so is

memes. Phillips and Milner define memes as "self-referential texts collectively created,

circulated, and transformed by participants online (30). Memes generally – but not exclusively –

take the form of an image captioned with some sort of joke and are transferred online through

social media platforms and messaging services. Jokes are a large part of a meme's DNA, which

makes them ripe playgrounds for political humor.

Humor is no foreigner to political discourse. Much research has been done on humor as a

method of persuasion, namely how it affects audience perception of the humor's subject. Often

times the subject of political humor is painted negatively, which in turn leads creates an

antagonistic image of the content's subject in the eyes of the viewer (Baumgartner 321; Lee and

Kwak 319; Becker and Haller 50).

A strong example of audience perception skewing through political humor occurred

during the 2008 Presidential election when the popularity of Tina Fey's Saturday Night Live
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parody of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin skyrocketed. Viewership of Saturday Night

Live episodes featuring Fey's impression outnumbered the viewership of similarly broadcast

events with Palin herself (Becker 427). As approval ratings dropped for Palin, Saturday Night

Live ratings rose (Becker 427).

Memes provide ample opportunity to similarly manipulate audience perception. By

design, they are expressive images of a figure often with accompanying text wholly originated

by the creator. Memes often misattribute quotes to public figures with the goal of building

viewer sympathy or disdain for the figure, and online guides exist to help viewers see which

quotes are real and which ones are fake ("Marilyn Monroe"; "Be Skeptical of Facebook"). But

most internet users will likely never visit these guides nor scrutinize the memes they see. Memes

live on social media, and someone scrolling through social media is not likely inclined to think

critically about the image they're seeing.

Given that memes are a daily part of many internet users' lives and users are unlikely to

question what they see, it is important to consider the rhetorical design of political messaging

through memes. The internet has ushered in a new era of user-generated content under which

memes fall. It is possible that many users are not consciously thinking of rhetorical theory as

they design their works. However, a message is still being conveyed, and all political messages

deserve scrutiny.

America's reluctance to question memes was capitalized on in the 2016 Presidential

election. Russian agencies created a great number of memes that were spread through fake social

media accounts to polarize American citizens (Shane). These memes took stances on both sides

of the political isle and advocated for and spoke against both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,

as well discussing hot topics in American discourse such as abortion and police brutality
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(Shane). The importance of analyzing memes is further cemented by their use as tools from

foreign interests.

Examining memes through a rhetorical lens can reveal information about who the

audience is, how the subject of the meme is meant to be perceived, and how the audience is

meant to react. Much research on political humor has centered on the effects of political efficacy

and cynicism in viewers after consuming humorous content. But it is important to determine the

strategy of messaging as well as its post-consumption effects.

Roland Barthes argues that every piece of visual rhetoric conveys two messages: a

denotative message and a connotative message. The denotative message is simply what the

picture is comprised of without any consideration for what a viewer may extrapolate from the

piece's components (Barthes 42). The connotative message relies on viewers to combine the

baggage of an image's components to create a coded message (43). The two messages provide a

framework to interpret an image's message.

A meme, at its core is an image. Thereby a meme can be analyzed through Barthes's

denotative and connotative framework. However, as a product of the internet, a meme is granted

certain affordances that other visual media are not. Phillips and Milner posit that four

affordances must exist in order for a meme to be a meme: modularity, which is the ability to

"manipulate, rearrange, and/or substitute" the components of an image without affecting its

overall structure; modifiability, which is the ability to "repurpose and reappropriate aspects of an

existing project to some new end"; archivability, meaning a work can be stored online; and

accessibility, or the ability of a work to be found through online searching (Phillips and Milner

45).
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Combining Barthes's visual framework with the affordances identified by Phillips and

Milner create a larger ability to analyze political messaging in a uniquely digital environment.

The framework will be applied to a meme that celebrates President Donald Trump's economic

success while lambasting the failure of a rising Democratic star in the U.S. House of

Representatives.

Denotative and Connotative Analysis

Figure 1 is a Trump-supporting meme found from the Facebook page "TruthFeed," which

posts exclusively memes supporting the

President and attacking his opponents in the

Democratic Party to its base of over eight-

hundred thousand followers (TruthFeed). The

page's "About" section contains only the short

sentence "Keep America Great! Vote #MAGA

2018 and #Trump 2020" (TruthFeed), showing

its indisputable support for President Trump.

Using a denotative analysis, per
Barthes's theory, requires removing any socio-
cultural associations from the image and
Fig. 1. Meme of President Donald Trump and
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from:
TruthFeed, "Timeline Photos," Facebook, 16 Feb. 2019,
https://www.facebook.com/KeepAmericaGreat20/photos/
a.592664787567108/1245097335657180/?
type=3&theater. Accessed 17 April 2019.

looking at it as if naive to its symbolism.

Through that lens, the image shows in its top half a man standing in front of a background of

stripes and stars decorated in a red, white, and blue color scheme. The same color scheme is

echoed in the man's clothes. He has a blue jacket, a white shirt, and a red tie hanging from his
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neck. A block of text sits in front of his torso.

On the bottom half of the picture sits a woman, mouth agape and eyes clothes with

seemingly messy hair. She is sitting amongst others, as a red-haired person occupies the

background to the right and the shoulder of another person is seen to the left of the woman. Text

covers her forehead in the same font as the text in front of the image's man. However, there is

additional text at the very bottom of the image in front of the woman's torso in much smaller

font.

Now that the components of the image have been identified denotatively, a connotative

analysis can begin. United States President Donald Trump occupies the upper half of the image,

standing proudly in front of the United States flag. On his suit jacket is an American flag pin,

creating a strong sense of unity between he and the American flag behind him; the colors red,

white, and blue are echoed in the flag, his suit design, and the pin on his jacket. The unity of

color and upright stance make him appear "one with America," an embodiment of patriotic

virtues. The text in front of him reads "Half-term: Four million jobs gained."

U.S. House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sits in the images lower half. She

appears to be laughing from her House seat. There is little unity between her appearance and her

environment, likely due to the image being a candid photo rather than a posed photo like

President Trump's above. The text above her forehead reads "1 month: 25-thousand jobs lost."

The text at the bottom of the image blocking her torso reads "Socialism. Nothing to lose but jobs

and freedom," seeming to link her with socialism.

The contrast between the two figures cannot be exaggerated. Trump is strong and

composed, beaming with confidence through his calm smile and straight posture. His dress

matches his demeanor, as he is clearly well-fitted with a suit that communicates power. His
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photograph is stable. No movement is seen; one gets the impression that Trump is locked in

place, too sturdy to be moved.

Ocasio-Cortez, on the other hand, is shown in a vulnerable state. She is leaning backward

in laughter as her hair flies haphazardly behind her head and across her shoulders. Smiling and

laugher generally connote joy and warmth. However, placed alongside text that suggests

economic failure by crediting the loss of twenty-five thousand jobs to her, Ocasio-Cortez's

laughter is meant to connote stupidity rather than warmth. The viewer is to see her as foolish and

inept, the opposite of Trump's stately figure.

The bottom block of text in the image rounds out the message that it is trying to send. As

"Socialism. Nothing to lose but freedom and jobs" is placed in the bottom half of the meme

alongside Ocasio-Cortez, she is immediately implicated with socialism. If Ocasio-Cortez –

identified as a socialist by the meme – was too unintelligent to retain twenty-five thousand jobs,

then socialism itself is equally absurd. Trump then, by contrast, must symbolize the opposite of

Ocasio-Cortez's socialism. As a Republican President, Trump supports free market policies that

relinquish control from the government and place it in the hand of corporations. Laissez-faire

capitalism as practiced by Trump has led, argues the meme, to the addition of four million jobs

in the U.S. By placing capitalism and socialism as opposites, and creating a marriage between

Trump's success and capitalism and a similar marriage between Ocasio-Cortez's failure and

socialism, the meme argues that capitalism is the only economic path for success.

How Internet Affordances Affect the Meme's Design

Phillips and Milner's identified affordances – modularity, modifiability, archivability, and

accessibility – are directly related to the rhetorical messaging of the meme. While modifying
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multiple images is not at all new, the internet makes creation of distorted images much more

achievable for the common citizen.

There is little evidence of modularity found in either of the photos uses in the meme. The

original photo of Trump is a promotional photo taken before his inauguration, and its visual

components are left unaltered. The same goes for the photo of Ocasio-Cortez. The visual

components are in the meme as they are in the original photo.

Both original images are modified, however, by being juxtaposed against one another

into one image. The combination of the two pictures fits well within Phillips and Milner's

definition, as the two images are repurposed as contrasting portraits of opposing leaders instead

of individual photos of each respective person. The meme's addition of text also reflects

modification, as it further repurposes the images by aligning President Trump with capitalism's

success and Ocasio-Cortez with socialism's failures. Where once there were two distinct images

meant simply to portray their respective figures, through modification there is a singular meme

meant to uplift one figure while deriding the

other.

Archivability and accessibility work

hand in hand for tracking the original images

used to make the meme. For the President
Donald Trump photo (Fig. 2), the words
"Trump standing in front of American flag"
Fig. 2. President Donald Trump in front of American flag
from: "West Coast Renewable Investors Unfazed by Donald
Trump," Governor's Wind and Solar Energy Coalition, 3 Nov.
2016, https://governorswindenergycoalition.org/west-coast-
renewable-investors-unfazed-by-prospect-of-trump/. Accessed
25 April 2019.

were used. The original image used in TruthFeed's meme popped up as the seventh result on

Google Images with a link to an article from The Governors' Wind and Solar Energy Coalition

(see Fig. 2).

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The image of Representative Ocasio-Cortez (Fig. 3) was found using the search phrase

"photos Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez laughing." The first Google Images result yields the image

used for the meme, with the credited link

leading to an article from conservative

website Breitbart. The archivability and

accessibility that the internet allows users to

very easily find source images for meme

creation using simplistic search terms, where

finding images in a pre-internet era could
take months of investigation.
The affordances play a vital role in
the design of the meme, as they allow easy
Fig. 3. U.S. House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez laughing from: Pollak, Joel B., "‘Democratic
Socialist’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Fined by New York
for Failing to Provide Workers’ Comp," Breitbart, 10 Jan
2019, https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/10/
democratic-socialist-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-fined-by-
new-york-for-failing-to-provide-workers-comp/. Accessed
25 April 2019.

access to not only the meme's images but also to tools through which the images can be

modified. By splicing together two separate images and adding political text, a strong message in

favor of Trump's Presidency and against Ocasio-Cortez's policies is communicated.

Implications of Messaging Through Memes

The message of the meme, as with many messages, is nothing without considering its

source. TruthFeed's meme, as many others are, was shared to social media. People scroll through

social media rapidly, breezing by all of the content that is vying for their attention. A successful

piece of social media content will make the viewer stop through its engaging visual design.

TruthFeed's meme does so by placing President Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the

same image. The two figures are near opposites in their policy positions and have both shown
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antagonism toward one another via social media. Seeing the two of them in the same image will

likely make social media users stop scrolling to look at the meme.

The meme itself can be processed in mere seconds; it is not a visually complicated

design, and the text is rather short. But the contrast between Trump and Ocasio-Cortez with

regard to their appearance and success will leave an impression on the viewer, and they will

continue scrolling (or will share the meme to their profile) with the meme's message locked

inside their brain. The entire time spent engaging (looking at it and potentially sharing it) will

take less than a minute.

The fast paced nature of social media allows for memes such as this to be spread, which

is troubling given that this meme is intentionally misleading. The meme was posted to

TruthFeed's Facebook page on February 16, 2019, a little over two weeks after Forbes posted a

report claiming Trump had added 4.6 million jobs in his then two-year tenure as President

(DeVore). Ocasio-Cortez's numbers, as stated by the meme, represent the breaking of a deal

between online-retailer Amazon and New York City, which Ocasio-Cortez represents. Amazon

had planned to open a headquarters building in New York City that would add twenty-five

thousand jobs to the city. Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal Congress-members – as well as a

strong number of city residents – opposed the move, decrying the government's willingness to

give Amazon three-billion dollars worth of subsidies in exchange for building the headquarters

(Soper).

TruthFeed's meme makes it seem that Ocasio-Cortez lost the jobs through foolishness.

Her laugh and the use of the word "lost" with regard to the twenty-five thousand jobs portray a

Representative who was not cunning enough to retain those jobs – jobs which, based on the word

"lost," the meme believes were already in existence. In fact, Ocasio-Cortez deliberately fought
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against Amazon and won. She successfully prevented the headquarters from being built and

displayed strong leadership in her accomplishment. If the meme said she had "prevented" the

acquisition of twenty-five thousand jobs, perhaps its message wouldn't be so harmful. But

portraying Ocasio-Cortez as someone who lost the jobs, as well as ignoring the context

surrounding those jobs, clouds the situation and the meme's message with falsehood.

Spreading political falsehoods is dangerous in any medium, but memes shared through

social media add a specific danger element the spreading of misinformation. Research has shown

that political humor that attacks an individual proves rather persuasive, leading viewers of a

humorous work to view its subject poorly (Baumgartner 321; Becker and Haller 50; Lee and

Kwak 319). Antagonistic political humor also makes the viewer feel superior to the work's

subject if the viewer has an opposing party affiliation from the subject (Becker 438); if the

viewer has a similar party affiliation to the work's subject, the viewer will feel less confident in

their political knowledge and will question their allegiance with the work's subject (439).

The TruthFeed meme's foremost goal is not humor, but there is certainly a humor aspect

to it. Placing what some may see as an unflattering picture of Ocasio-Cortez that is meant to

highlight her lack of wit against Trump's statuesque control is itself a form of ridicule.

Highlighting the contrast between the two is meant to be a sort of bullying tactic against Ocasio-

Cortez. A viewer, especially one who identifies as a Republican, would be prone to chuckle at

Ocasio-Cortez's failure in light of Trump's economic achievements. And based on Becker's

research, a viewer sympathetic to Ocasio-Cortez will likely have an anxious response that

questions not only the Representative's intelligence but also the viewer's.

The design of the meme is meant to elate Trump and lambast Ocasio-Cortez. In a fast

paced social media environment, the misleading nature of TruthFeed's meme (and others like it)
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threaten the future of political discourse. Russia has already capitalized on polarized America by

creating and sharing similar memes to Facebook. Admittedly, there is a strong chance that the

TruthFeed meme itself is a Russian made meme. The uncertainty itself is alarming, but what is

more alarming is that pages like TruthFeed have millions of followers that spread ill-informed or

outright false memes that solidify their own political beliefs and create a refusal to consider

opposing beliefs. At worst, the memes make viewers believe anyone on the opposing side is a

liar. Remaining conscious of memes' fickle nature is necessary if America is interested in

combating polarization among its citizenry.

Works Cited
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Barthes, Roland. "The Rhetoric of the Image." Image - Music - Text, edited and translated by

Stephen Heath, Hill and Wang, 1978, pp. 32-51.

Baumgartner, Jody C. "Humor on the Next Frontier: Youth, Online Political Humor, and the Jib

Jab Effect." Social Science Computer Review, vol. 25, 2007, pp. 319-338.

"Be Skeptical of Facebook Quotes and Memes." Skeptical Science, 5 Sept. 2016,

https://www.skeptical-science.com/critical-thinking/skeptical-facebook-quotes-memes/.

Accessed 6 May 2019.

Becker, Amy B. “Playing With Politics: Online Political Parody, Affinity for Political Humor,

Anxiety Reduction, and Implications for Political Efficacy.” Mass Communication and

Society, vol. 17, 2014, pp. 424-425.

Becker, Amy B. and Beth A. Haller. "When Political Comedy Turns Personal: Humor Types,

Audience Evaluations, and Attitudes." The Howard Journal of Communications, vol. 25,

2014, pp. 34-55.

DeVore, Chuck. "Manufacturers Added 6 Times More Jobs Under Trump Than Under Obama's

Last 2 Years." Forbes, 1 Feb. 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/

2019/02/01/manufacturers-added-6-times-more-jobs-under-trump-than-under-obamas-

last-2-years/#548a95d95635. Accessed 9 May 2019.

Lee, Hoon and Nojin Kwak. "The Affect Effect of Political Satire: Sarcastic Humor, Negative

Emotions, and Political Participation." Mass Communication and Society, vol. 17., 2014,

pp. 307-328.

"Marilyn Monroe: The Best Quotes She Never Said." Heart, n.d,

https://www.heart.co.uk/‌showbiz‌/celebrities/marilyn-monroe-fake-quotes-style-icon-

classic/. Accessed 6 May 2019.

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Phillips, Whitney and Ryan Milner. The Ambivalent Internet: Mischief, Oddity, and Antagonism

Online. Polity Press, 2017.

Shane, Scott. " These Are the Ads Russia Bought on Facebook in 2016." The New York Times, 1

Nov. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-

facebook.html. Accessed 29 April 2019.

Soper, Spencer. "Amazon Scraps Plan to Build a Headquarters in New York City." Bloomberg,

14 Feb. 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-14/amazon-says-it-

won-t-build-a-headquarters-in-new-york-city. Accessed 7 May 2019.

TruthFeed. "About." Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/pg/KeepAmericaGreat20/ about/?

ref=page_internal. Accessed 17 April 2019.