Internet meme as a “newsmaker” in the modern media space

Abstract

The article discusses the possibilities of representing Internet memes in the modern media sphere. An anthropological approach to the study of the use of memes in media is indicated. The Internet meme is understood as a new universal unit of measurement that allows you to explore the communicative space on a common basis. The genre specificity of the Internet meme is defined through the following parameters: 1) expanding the scope of distribution beyond the Internet, primarily in the media sphere; 2) the secondary nature of genre (due to the technological features of the sphere of origin); 3) the multicode nature and polysemantics (in representation and interpretation); 4) transformation (“mutation” of a meme from one to another — memes are constantly updated, mixed, forming an increasingly complex and specific creolized language of Internet communities); 5) precedent nature (concepts / ideas); 6) multifunctionality (manifested in the implementation of not only entertaining functions, but also social, including making an impact). The problem of the genre nature of the meme is considered from the point of view of possible transformations consisting in transferring the meme to journalistic texts. Attention is drawn to the role of memes in the formation of media content and how journalists handle the popular Internet phenomena. In media texts created by journalists, in particular in federallevel Internet publications and television media, the basic types of Internet memes are revealed: textual, visual, and creolized. The idea of memes as “newsmakers,” that is, as special sources of information that often do not have a certain authorship and actually do not offer themselves for publication, is proposed. The trends in the use of memes in modern journalism and the possible effects of such use associated with the impact on recipients are determined.