New Genres of Internet Communication (based on Demotivators and Memes)

Abstract

The article attempts to consider new forms of Internet communication in terms of their genre affiliation. The research is focused on memes and demotivators, which are widely spread on social networks, but not always differentiated by users. The authors of the article conducted an online survey in order to find out what users of social networks understand by a meme and a demotivator, for what purpose, in what situation and who they send them to, how they react when they receive them. The answers to these and other questions made it possible to present the genre aspects of memes and demotivators from the point of view of respondents and to identify common and different properties of these genres. The survey involved 105 participants aged 16 to 64. As a result, the following common for the two genres aspects are described: a similar discourse, within which these genres appear and function; the secondary nature of memes and demotivators and their potential for creative transformation users may perform in different discourse situations; coincidence in the characteristics of the addressee of the genres; irrelevance (implicitness) of the author. The main differences are as follows: the difference in the communicative goal of the user; the predominant existence of demotivators within virtual communication, while memes have gone beyond virtual communication; minimal attachment of a demotivator to a discourse situation, while a meme is a reaction to relevant, momentary information; language features of the described genres (creolization of the text and violation of language norms).

Keywords

• internet communication
• genres of speech
• indirect utterances
• creolized texts
• meme
• demotivator