The narrative of precariousness: from the mediatic to the memetic

Abstract

This article starts from the urgency of knowing the dynamics of the meme as a narrative to know and understand how a large part of today’s society is self-narrating, specifically a broad spectrum of the youth and adult population. The objective is to put in tension whether the meme disputes the representation of the world that mediates or if, on the other hand, it legitimizes such hegemonic representation. To this end, the representation of precariousness, previously defined through some markers, is analyzed in seven user accounts of the social network Instagram in the Ibero-American sphere -which targets a Spanish audience mostly in this language- and specialized in the meme format that addresses the theme of precariousness or elements that converge in it. For the analysis of the units, an interpretative matrix is developed as a coding tool delimited in three phases of description. The results obtained —there is a primacy of elements related to mental health, for example, and the pointing out of neoliberalism— facilitate to advance in the discussion that confronts the meme as a narrative and reproduction mechanism of the media narrative and the meme as a condensed narrative artifact that exerts as a cultural mediation with its own narrative and that overflows the media narrative. In fact, the results show that the meme does not enable a transformation or an overflow of hegemony, since, as in the media narrative, the memetic excludes the key of the interpellation to the collective as a critical textuality.