You Meme this is inappropriate..?
The youth of Australia aren’t the only ones evolving
Politicians are winning elections with their ‘lit’ memes. Can these words even coincide? Well in fact they do, and with media platforms and politics continuing to merge, the tone and strategies of political campaigns continues to change. The 2019 Australian federal election is right around the corner so Australians, particularly younger generations should be ready for radical tactics. Since, they state we are a democracy and have some part to play in deciding who we choose to lead this country, it’s useful to explore how politicians mitigate political reform to engage users. By using more direct forms of communication, such as social media platforms, memes have become a powerful political tool.
For those of you who need a refresh, internet memes are the creative formation of photographs with accompanying words which create commentary for the image, while ‘a political meme is a purposefully designed visual framing of a position.’ It’s one we don’t usually associate and think much of during an election campaign, however, has become a prominent form used within political communication with its effective nature of persuading audiences and finding common ground through satirical political reform. We, as the youth of Australia, need to be aware of campaign intentions and understand the party before casting a vote.
In an NATO journal written by Jeff Giesea, memes are argued as a powerful tool used as cyberwarfare to combat propaganda and this quote narrates this:
Memetic warfare is about taking control of the dialogue, narrative, and psychological space. It’s about denigrating, disrupting, and subverting the enemy’s effort to do the same.
On the more positive, memes create in-groups (a group of individuals who have a shared commonality), a sense of belonging and have the capacity to evoke strong emotions and create a deeper reflection on social issues, however, some can say this is also a downside. Alongside, the symbols used in images can be too politically charged, racist and even anti-Semitic.
This can be seen in the case of Clive Palmer, the controversial businessman with a social media profile quite unique, who’s recently relaunched his campaign in the bid to run for the 2019 Australian Federal Election. Palmer has a Facebook group, Palmy Army, which serves for the curation of memes, usually involving his dog, grog-the-dog, his love for Tim-Tams and himself. We can ridicule all of this, but he has taken an approach vastly different to other political parties to perhaps reach out to a younger demographic that aren’t as engaged in current politics. In doing so, he has created an ‘in-group’ of 13,094 members. His campaign is more properly advertised in mainstream media, appealing to a wider array of citizens and has harnessed current platform dialogue to spark interest in younger generations through meme curation. They keyed in on the power of memes and capitalised on Facebook’s new algorithm changes which favour images and video content over links and text posts.
‘Despite lacking ‘credibility’ and ‘integrity’ in both his business and personal life’, Mr Bramston states that Clive Palmer is ‘on the verge of making a stunning political comeback’. There is a large group of youth getting behind United Australia Party campaign. Palmer has capitalised on the proliferation of traditional political communication forms, like TV broadcasting, newspapers etc, harnessing a satirical strategy to form a political identity and form a connection with a group of citizens that memes appeal to, whilst holding political power. Memes are usually created and controlled by citizens, however, in this instance, Palmer has cleverly taken back the ‘power’ from the people to influence people in creating them himself, ironically about himself. His alternative campaign strategy has increased interest, targeting a younger demographic who are not as well informed, not interested and not engaged about political agendas, and so, some can say he has bridged this gap, initiating conversation and gaining possible support for his campaign. Though it’s urged that further research and understanding of political parties be taken before committing to a party because the politician is funny.
Meme culture has allowed Palmer to portray himself as part of youth creation culture while demonstrating his opposition as ‘out of touch elitists’ who don’t understand Australia. It has become an increasingly popular form of strategic communication, especially when an artfully delivered and curated joke signifies to a nation, that it’s okay to laugh, we can laugh together. So regardless of whether he succeeds in the federal election, we need to take note of the underlay of campaigns. One element that I have to command his party for is the cunning strategies to engage youth, even if it’s one Tim-Tam meme at a time.
