Political Memes in the Light of Agenda Setting Theory: A Fabricated Mayhem
Abstract
Political memes play an integral role in creating the right atmosphere of attraction for political parties. The Agenda behind these political memes is basically to divert the attention of the target audience and evoke their voters to vote for them as well as to degrade opposing political parties through the element of humor. This paper aims to layer out the political memes through the theoretical framework of agenda-setting theory that political parties deliberately launch on the cyber world in order to change the views and opinions of youth. They are the key agents to instigate any change in society. The methodology opted to execute the research is qualitative and quantitative. The mixed method is indispensable in order to comprehend the perception of political memes on society. 13 randomly selected mems of three prominent political parties have been analyzed through Agenda–setting theory by Shaw and McCombs (1972) to comprehend how voter’s agenda is correlated to media and how it serves as a key agent in gauging the changing thinking patterns. For scaling these thinking patterns, a questionnaire has been developed on the Likert scale in order to understand the voice of the people specifically undergraduate university students. Purposive sampling technique is used to collect data from 25 undergraduate students and 25 postgraduate students. The results show that memes are remarkably playing a vital role in diverting people’s attention to certain agendas. Both genders are attracted towards it but males are more inclined. Moreover, there are significant differences observed in age and qualification
Copyright Notice Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher. The Editors reserve the right to edit or otherwise alter all contributions, but authors will receive proofs for approval before publication. Copyrights for articles published in IJSSA journal are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author’s responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author.
