Research Information System
TURKIYE ILETISIM ARASTIRMALARI DERGISI-TURKISH REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES, vol.0, no.37, pp.125-146, 2021 (ESCI)
With the development of new communication technologies, social media has provided all members of the society with the opportunity to create content on the subject they want, regardless of their location and interests. One of the most popular of these contents is memes that we have seen frequently recently as a digital humor element on social media. On the one hand, memes, which have the potential to make people laugh, are thought to reflect the social reality of the society they live in, on the other hand. Although laughing is seen as an involuntary physiological movement that is not in the hands of the individual, in fact this act has a close relationship with the individual and the society. The study, which was carried out to analyze the social patterns that the memes have in their indicators beyond being funny, investigates how social reality manifests through humor and laughter through the digital humor element Covid-19 memes. In this context, the Covid-19 memes shared on Instagram, a social media application, have been analyzed with the semiotic method based on French thinker Henri Bergson's theory of the humor. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that the memes have a structure that feeds on social and cultural values, and they not only make you laugh, but also have the potential to remind the necessity of social solidarity in tragic times and the responsibilities that each individual must comply with.