Decoding Digital Content: A Social Semiotic Perspective on Pakistani Social Media Trends
Abstract
This research focuses on examining the selected content of memes shared during specific viral events in Pakistan, aiming to uncover the social and cultural ideologies embedded within these memes. The study utilizes the framework developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) for the semiotic analysis of communication across multiple modes, known as Multimodal Discourse Analysis. This method is applied to investigate the social and cultural ideologies reflected in the chosen Pakistani memes. Drawing on concepts from related fields, such as social semiotics, the study analyzes both the visual and textual components of a sample of memes created in response to viral images or videos. The paper contends that the text, images, and underlying ideologies in these memes reflect key aspects of Pakistani culture. It explores how these memes humorously address specific situations. The findings indicate that the memes often convey social and cultural ideologies related to religion, language, food, social norms and values, marriage, sports, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, the memes encompass a wide range of Pakistani social ideologies, from parental beliefs to expressions of patriotism.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Minnaa Ahmad, Aatqa Aslam, Anam Siddiqui, Namra Fazal

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.