Vai virar meme: transformações do sensorium e da política na cultura audiovisual

Abstract

This research aims to understand transformations in the sensorium and politics from memes in audiovisual culture. The sensorium is understood here as new ways of perceiving, feeling, and relating to time and space (MARTÍN-BARBERO, 2017) and politics is configured from the 3-vertex diagram composed of: everyday life, body and State and in whose vectors their nuances are located (GROSSBERG, 2010). Based on the concepts and assumptions of Cultural Studies, the meme is seen as a cultural form (WILLIAMS, 2016) and the practices around it are taken to make us see mosaic-knowledge, other figures of citizenship, in addition to disputes and agreements about social, political, and cultural issues in Brazil. Meming is highlighted as an empowerment strategy based on culture, which mobilizes affects and strengthens a sense of belonging, communities of meaning and sharing. In addition to the diagram, our referential is also supported by the articulation of three maps by Martín-Barbero: the one of mediations, the one of mutations and the Insomne, and his contributions to the approach to youth, politics and education. The mediation/mutation of technicalities is seen in a three-dimensional way, considering Martín-Barbero's three maps, which negotiate with flows, identities, sensibilities, and narratives. The analysis starts from the identification of four elements or sets that make up the meme in the techno-communicative environment: the zoeira, a particular trademark expression of Brazilian humor; vernacular creativity and new literacies; the grouping composed of propagability, instantaneity and replicability; and the treta, a kind of Brazilian mess. We make a temporal cut where there are two main historical moments and their reverberations that allow us to build a context for the investigation considering the memes created and shared in the period. The first highlights the so-called "education crisis" in the last months of the Temer government up to the 4th head of the MEC in the current administration, going through events such as the Tsunami da Educação, in 2019. The second addresses the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil and the diversity of thematic crossings that cover the first 18 months of the pandemic in the country. The investigation focuses on the variety of what we call memetic events that are triggered along these two moments. The way in which meming is articulated with the three vectors of the diagram is emphasized in examples that address indigenous, racial, and high school youth activism. Finally, we suggest articulations involving the maps, the diagram and the set of elements that make up the meme, pointing out two issues or places of identification of the transformations of the sensorium and politics: the fight ring where the memes lead disputes and give rise to expressions of other politics and the platform where sensibilities and technicalities unfold in experiences supported by the meme as other ways of living, feeling and narrating the world.