Chinese Facebook users attacked STV to fight back its racism program


On September 21, SVT played a talk show Sweden News talked about the Chinese tourists Zeng’s family, who announced that they were “abused” by Sweden policemen. This show insulted all Chinese by stating the “culture difference” between China and Sweden such as “we do not poop outside historic buildings”,“while sitting at the dinner table, we do not poop”, “we do not eat dogs” and posting a racism picture.

The show subtitled in Chinese was posted on a Chinese video website and caused huge rage of Chinese in social media. The Chinese Embassy called for “profound reflection and immediately issue a sincere apology” of the program. 
In order to “fight back” the program, some Chinese on social media started attacking the Facebook of Sweden Embassy, the program and the TV presenter by asking for apologies and commenting these memes. Facebook became a place to hold demonstration. This is definitely a “grassroots action”. (Limor, 2013, p.123)



This also acts as a form of persuasion. Individuals feel they are empowered by both their companions and the government (the announcement of the Chinese Embassy). Sweden national flag and the King of Sweden can be found in these memes, which are political elements. One meme remix the picture describing refugees problem in Sweden but changed the face of Sweden people into the hosts’ faces.
Those Chinese Facebook users use those memes to express their anger. But discussion is rare since nearly all of them are in agreement that the Sweden program is a target of attacking.

评论

  1. Soup Twin-12018年10月3日 14:05

    Very Interesting example. I would like a bit more description and interpretation of the memes and their perceived meaning as I am not familiar with this event. Also more reflection on what strategy they seem to encourage would be helpful. Otherwise good job!

    回复删除

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Bro, just let it go.

图片
These three memes have similar subtitle which mean “Bro, just let it go.” Social media users apply these memes when they are trying to let someone claim down. The main characters— the Muslim with a gun, the cat and the cock—are aggressive. While the other characters in pictures are trying to stop the impulsive main characters.   “Bro, just let it go” came from OW game competition . Then, the meme of cock and dog became viral in Chinese social media at about the same time and users tend to use these different versions simultaneously to avoid repeating others. The humor inside them are also similar.   According to the incongruity theory, people feel it funny when unexpected conflicts happen between different elements of the same meme. In the picture of three men, the Muslim with white hat has a furious face and is going to fire the gun, while the other two men seem to be smiling and are holding his arms to stop him. The conflicts in action and emotion dif...
阅读全文

Week 10: Referring to Shifman

Shifman summarizes some elements of viral success and memetic success in his book Memes in digital culture . Participation is a feature of both viral and memetic success. Participation means "viral dissemination may be enhanced if people are encouraged not only to share a certain item, but also to carry out other activities related to it"(2014, p.72). When the concept of "Buddhist styled youths" memes got popular in social media, many users participate in expansion of the memes to "Buddhist styled" plus any occupation or identities such as "Buddhist styled employees", "Buddhist styled teachers", "Buddhist styled mothers".  "Many successful campaigns depend not only on sharing content but also on the active engagement of users in re-creating or appropriating items"(2014, p.72). The joint meaning creation becomes a campaign that everyone is contributing to the expansion of the "Buddhist styled" memes and crat...
阅读全文