Browsing by Subject "cat memes"

This qualitative study examines multimodal communication in cat memes. Cat memes, also called Lolcats, are a medium that consists of two modes: a photograph of a cat and a caption. They can be seen as signs that participate in a communicative act. To examine how these modes work, a semiotic multimodal analysis was conducted. The research consists of two datasets that both include cat memes. The first set consists of eight Lolcats, while the second set includes 17 variations of one Lolcat template. All Lolcats were collected from I Can Has Cheezburger?, a meme website. Firstly, the layout structure of the memes in the first dataset were are introduced to identify the semiotic modes. Secondly, the images and captions of each meme in the first dataset were individually analyzed, and the connections between them were discussed in detail. The second dataset was analyzed focusing on the captions to find out how the reference of a meme can be changed by manipulating the caption. The analysis revealed that the relationship between the semiotic modes of a cat meme differs depending on the reference. Both modes are needed for successful communication. When the visual connection is strong, the captions only support the communicative act. When there is weaker visual reference, the burden of delivering the message shifts to the caption. Captions can also guide the viewer to interpret the same image in different ways. Even though Lolcats are humoristic pieces of online communication that are often consumed quickly, they can reveal interesting details about the online Lolcat community.