SpoMePo
Last updated
Last updated
SPoMePo, the acronym for SocioPolitical Meme Perspectivization Ontology, is an ontology designed to describe perspectivization through socio-political memes. The main objective of SPoMePo is to capture the different perspectives and points of view that emerge from socio-political memes, thus facilitating the analysis of sociopolitical dynamics. This ontology allows to represent how memes in social and political context can be interpreted in different ways.
We decided to focus our analysis on the following definition of Internet memes:
"Internet memes are a popular form of communication of trends and ideas on social media and the internet in general, combining the modes of images and text."
From this definition, we have chosen to focus on social and political memes, defined as "phenomena explicitly involving social groups, political entities (e.g. parties, politicians, etc.), events with political implications or effects on social groups." This choice was motivated by the vastness of online memes, which counts millions of examples, making it necessary to narrow down the field of analysis for a deeper and more detailed understanding.
In reference to Mediaframe, we used the following definition:
"A Media Frame is a multimedia object used to represent a “memeable” situation, i.e., one that is familiar to the creator and a broader community."
In our research, we found that currently there are no specific ontologies for Internet memes. However, we found a knowledge graph that allowed us to extract and better understand the concepts relevant to our ontology (e.g, the relationship between MediaFrame, Image and Caption)
From our bibliographical research we have the following definition of template:
"Templates are multimedia structures for a given Media Frame, typically consisting of an image and a placeholder for the caption text."
Subsequently, we asked questions at the LLM:
Political, social, humorous and satirical, cultural and historical themes, current issues such as crises and emergencies, environmental and technological themes.
Political Image Macro:
Example: A template featuring a prominent political figure, such as Bernie Sanders with his famous "I am once again asking for your financial support" image. The top part of the image usually contains the original caption, and the bottom part can be customized with a variety of humorous or relatable requests.
Change My Mind:
Example: A meme template showing Steven Crowder sitting at a table with a sign that reads "Change My Mind." The sign can be edited to present different statements or opinions, inviting humorous or satirical challenges to the presented viewpoint.
Comparative Template:
Example: A side-by-side comparison template, often used to highlight differences or similarities between two entities. For instance, comparing two political candidates, policies, or societal scenarios, with each side labeled accordingly to illustrate a point or joke.
Political Compass Template:
Example: A four-quadrant grid template used to place political ideologies or figures along two axes: economic (left-right) and social (authoritarian-libertarian). The template is filled with images or captions to place individuals, policies, or behaviors within the appropriate quadrant, often for comedic or illustrative purposes.
After this step, we analyzed a series of memes and identified all the possible classes needed for our analysis. We decide to concentrate our attention about Socio-Political Memes.
During the election campaign between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, social media users create and share political memes to express support, opposition and satire. Here’s how different users interact with memes.
Characters: Alice: 25-year-old, Biden supporter. Bob: 30 years old, Trump’s supporter. Cara: 22 years old, interested in humorous memes.
Alice creates a celebratory meme about Biden, to celebrate his recent success. The meme gets many shares among Biden supporters, reinforcing their enthusiasm. Bob creates a critical meme about Biden, using a Comparative Template to highlight his disapproval of a recent law. The meme receives many shares among Trump supporters and is used to criticize Biden. Cara uses a humorous meme to ridicule Trump, highlighting comic aspects of his statements. A Bob-critical meme about Biden stimulates a response from Alice, who creates a defensive meme using an Image Macro. Alice’s meme is shared among her supporters and generates online discussions between the two sides.
Conclusions: Memes play a significant role in political elections, influencing public perception and online discussion. Users like Alice, Bob and Cara use memes to express their opinions, support their candidates and create entertainment, while the memes themselves become a reflection of the ongoing political and social dynamics.
Comparative Template
Sarcastic
What is the Graphic content and Caption associated with this meme?
"Left panel shows a massive, detailed ice cream budget. Right panel depicts a comically small infrastructure budget with band-aids and duct tape."
"Biden's ice cream budget; US infrastructure budget"
Opinionated - Non-Troll
Politician
Controversial Opinion
Mocking Justaposition Meme
We have integrated into our ontology the Constituency pattern of Valentina Presutti, which represents the constituents of a stratified structure. This pattern is adopted to represent the stratification of the signs that constitute a meme, where a mediaframe or template constitutes a memeticlens. We can see the constitution of a meme as a sequence of signs stratification.
For a better understanding of the structure:
pers: Attitude -> spomepo: Non-troll (Non-opinionated, Opinionated), spomepo: Troll (tNon-opinionated, tOpinionated)
persp: BackgroundKnowledge -> spomepo: SociopoliticalPhenomena
Connotation -> Ironic, Motivational, Offensive, Sarcastic
persp: Cut -> spomepo: SocioPoliticalMeme (spomepo: ControversialMeme, spomepo: MockingJustpositionMeme, spomepo: NeutralJustapositionMeme, spomepo: SatyricalMeme, SupportiveMeme)
persp: Eventuality -> spomepo: PoliticalActivity, spomepo: PoliticalAgent (spomepo: PoliticalSupporter, spomepo: Politician), spomepo: SocialGroup
persp: Lens -> spomepo: MemeticLens
spomepo: MediaFrame -> spomepo: Caption, spomepo: GraphicContent
spomepo: Opinion -> spomepo: Controversial Opinion, spomepo: Uncontroversial Opinion
spomepo: Template -> spomepo: PoliticalImageMacro, spomepo: ChangeMyMindTemplate, spomepo: ComparativeTemplate, spomepo: PoliticalCompassTemplate
We then applied the same approach to properties, extending and adapting additional properties for our specific theme.
cons: isCostituentOf -> Refers to a MediaFrame or template that constitutes a MemeticLens.
persp: contrasts: Refers to a Cut that contrasts a Cut
spomepo: expresses: Refers to a Caption that espresses a ControversialOpinion or a PersonalOpinion
persp: extractedFrom: Refers to an Eventuality extracted from a BackgroundKnowledge
spomepo: hasCaption: Refers to a SocioPoliticalMeme that has caption a Caption
spomepo: hasConnotation: Refers to a SocioPoliticalMeme that has connotation a Connotation
cons: hasConstituent -> Refers to a MemeticLens has constituent a MediaFrame or a Template.
spomepo: hasGraphicContent: It refers to a SocioPoliticalMeme that has a graphical content represented by a GraphicContent class.
spomepo: hasTemplate: Refers to a SocioPoliticalMeme that has caption a Template. Characteristics: Asymmetric because not all templates have Socio Political Memes (Cut)
spomepo: isContentOf: Refers to a MediaFrame that is content of Template
persp: perspectivisedAs -> Refers to an Eventuality that perspectivised as a Cut
persp: perspectivisedThrough ->Refers to an Eventuality that perspectivised though a Lens
spomepo: refersTo: Refers to a MediaFrame that depicts an Eventuality
persp: shotThrough -> Refers to a Cut that shout through a Lens. This means analyzing meme from a particular angle or context to highlight specific aspects.
persp: towards: Refers to an Attitude towards a Cut
spomepo: hasValue: Refers to a Caption or a Connotation or a GraphicContent or a PoliticalActrivity or a PoliticalSupporter or a Politician or a SocialGroup has value a Literal
