Investigating Anti-Feminist Stereotyping Memes on Facebook: Multimodal Discourse Analysis Study

This study examines thirty anti-feminist memes publicly shared on Facebook. The memes were sourced from three explicitly anti-feminist pages, with ten memes selected from each. The research seeks to answer three key questions: (1) How do digital technologies impact the communication of new ideologies? (2) How do internet memes verbally and non-verbally communicate agendas against feminism? and (3) How far does multimodality provide a theoretical framework for decoding the inherent ideologies of new internet campaigns? Using Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) multimodal analysis model, the study investigates the representational, interactive, and compositional aspects of these memes. By addressing a research gap in the study of anti-feminist discourse, this work aims to provide deeper insights into how stereotypes against feminism are constructed and propagated online. The findings highlight five recurring stereotypes about feminists and feminism. The most prominent themes are (1) feminists are contradictory, (2) defining feminism, and (3) describing feminists. Less frequent themes include (4) feminists are sexist and (5) feminists’ alleged usage of rape. For the memes’ reactions analysis, findings indicate high audience approval of anti-feminist memes (95-100% positive reactions), suggesting extensive ideological alignment with their content. This study underscores the role of multimodality in unveiling the ideological implications of internet memes, contributing to a broader understanding of digital discourse and its societal impact.