Entre spreadability et brevitas : une analyse pragmatique et énonciative des mèmes internet

Abstract

The aim of this study is to show that Internet memes share several formal and functional characteristics with more traditional short forms (adages, proverbs, epigrams, etc.), which favour their widespread circulation and dissemination in socio-numerical networks. Indeed, the thesis is that this resemblance, or at least comparability with brief forms, constitutes one of the reasons for the high degree of spreadability (Jenkins et al. 2013) of these technodiscursive objects (Paveau 2017) in online platforms.

To this end, following the presentation of the theoretical framework, which argues for the abandonment of the notion of virality in favor of that of spreadability, I will focus on the formal analysis of a corpus of 200 French-language Internet memes from different platforms, with the aim of understanding how the concept of brevitas is declined in memes and, consequently, their pragmatic functioning, which explains at least in part their success in socio-numerical networks.