Curtin University Homepage
  • Library
  • Help
    • Admin

    espace - Curtin’s institutional repository

    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
    View Item 
    • espace Home
    • espace
    • Curtin Research Publications
    • View Item
    • espace Home
    • espace
    • Curtin Research Publications
    • View Item

    Olympic Trolls: Mainstream Memes and Digital Discord

    196807_108333_Fival_Version_FCJ-163Tama_Leaver.pdf (677.8Kb)
    Access Status
    Open access
    Authors
    Leaver, Tama
    Date
    2013
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Leaver, Tama. 2013. Olympic Trolls: Mainstream Memes and Digital Discord. Fibreculture Journal. 1 (22): pp. 216-233.
    Source Title
    Fibreculture Journal
    Additional URLs
    http://twentytwo.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-163-olympic-trolls-mainstream-memes-and-digital-discord/
    ISSN
    1449-1443
    Remarks

    This article is published under the Open Access publishing model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Please refer to the licence to obtain terms for any further reuse or distribution of this work.

    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/16491
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    While the mainstream press have often used the accusation of trolling to cover almost any form of online abuse, the term itself has a long and changing history. In scholarly work, trolling has morphed from a description of newsgroup and discussion board commentators who appeared genuine but were actually just provocateurs, through to contemporary analyses which focus on the anonymity, memes and abusive comments most clearly represented by users of the iconic online image board 4chan, and, at times, the related Anonymous political movement. To explore more mainstream examples of what might appear to be trolling at first glance, this paper analyses the Channel Nine Fail (Ch9Fail) Facebook group which formed in protest against the quality of the publicly broadcast Olympic Games coverage in Australia in 2012. While utilising many tools of trolling, such as the use of memes, deliberately provocative humour and language, targeting celebrities, and attempting to provoke media attention, this paper argues that the Ch9Fail group actually demonstrates the increasingly mainstream nature of many online communication strategies once associated with trolls. The mainstreaming of certain activities which have typified trolling highlight these techniques as part of a more banal everyday digital discourse; despite mainstream media presenting trolls are extremist provocateurs, many who partake in trolling techniques are simply ordinary citizens expressing themselves online.

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • The Stranger Danger: Exploring Surveillance, Autonomy, and Privacy in Children’s Use of Social Media
      Nolan, J.; Raynes-Goldie, Kate; McBride, M. (2011)
      The threat of online ‘stranger danger’ is a dominant theme in mainstream Western media reporting about children and the Internet. This climate of fear and moral panic has certain parents seeking increasingly restrictive ...
    • Girls’ ‘pain memes’ on youtube: The production of pain and femininity on a digital network
      Dobson, Amy (2015)
      In this chapter, the author tentatively calling pain meme' videos on You Tube created by teenage girls in Australia and other Western countries. The author use the phrase pain meme' to describe a particular style of video ...
    • Mainstreaming Captions for Online Lectures in Higher Education in Australia
      Kent, Michael; Ellis, Katie; Peaty, Gwyneth; Latter, Natalie; Locke, Kathryn (2017)
      Captions can be defined as the text version of speech and other sound in traditional audio visual media such as films, television, DVDs and online videos. Captions are usually provided to enhance audio content and are ...
    Advanced search

    Browse

    Communities & CollectionsIssue DateAuthorTitleSubjectDocument TypeThis CollectionIssue DateAuthorTitleSubjectDocument Type

    My Account

    Admin

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    Follow Curtin

    • 
    • 
    • 
    • 
    • 

    CRICOS Provider Code: 00301JABN: 99 143 842 569TEQSA: PRV12158

    Copyright | Disclaimer | Privacy statement | Accessibility

    Curtin would like to pay respect to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members of our community by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which the Perth campus is located, the Whadjuk people of the Nyungar Nation; and on our Kalgoorlie campus, the Wongutha people of the North-Eastern Goldfields.