Discriminatory meme culture on football Twitter: Othering and racialisation through insensitive humour

Eleanore Glynn*, David Brown, Lisa Edwards

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

There is currently a lack of sociological research surrounding the analysis of dis- criminatory memes on social media, with it appearing that their usage now has a home online, often without any condemnation from other users. This article explores the footballing Twitter community and its creation and use of insensi- tive racialising memes during the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship final between England and Italy. Twitter removed almost 2,000 tweets following the Euro 2020 final, with most tweets coming from the UK. This qualitative study collected tweets regarding the Italian footballer Giorgio Chiellini’s foul on the English player Bukayo Saka during the final match. Two main concepts were identified, humour and Othering, where the Othering of Black footballers was often concealed by humour. However, this article focuses on the representation of Othering through humour and memes. Ultimately, this article analyses memes’ formulation and commentary on football Twitter, often including problematic racialised narratives. The article concludes by reflecting on how critically under- standing meme usage can help to challenge racialised discrimination on football Twitter specifically.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-32
JournalMedia Watch
Early online date25 Jan 2025
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Jan 2025

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