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    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
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    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.

    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

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