A Critical Discourse Analysis of Arabic Internet Memes

Abstract

Abstract

The present paper aims to analyse multimodal discourse i.e., Arabic internet memes according to van Dijk's categories of ideological discourse analysis. It is noteworthy that no previous study tackled Arabic internet memes from this perspective. Moreover, Arabic internet memes are filled with implications that are to be analysed critically. It also aims at finding out how Arabic internet memes reflect society, showing how ideologies are represented in Arabic internet memes, investigating the role of context (i.e., background, mutual, and historical knowledge) in analysing data, and showing the way cartoonists employ ideological polarization. To accomplish these aims, samples of two Arabic internet memes are selected and analysed according to van Dijk's ideological square and categories of ideological discourse analysis. The selected data are taken from twitter and online books and it tackles different social and political issues. The findings of this paper suggest that ideology has a role in the representations of events and discourses are ideologically based; people tend to positively represent their own ideologies and practices and negatively represent the ideologies of other groups. In- and out- groups (ideological polarization) is, therefore, always evident in multimodal discourse.