The Role of Context in the Documentary Representation of Memes

Abstract

Memes widely disseminated within digital culture, go beyond mere entertainment to occupy a significant role as documentary artifacts that reflect social, political, and cultural contexts. This study aims to explore the contribution of contextual elements in the documentary representation of memes. A qualitative, exploratory, and applied approach was employed, grounded in bibliographic and documentary research. To illustrate how the proposed framework could be applied to meme representation, the study includes an example of a politically themed meme (sourced from Instagram), structured using VRA Core 4.0, to support the discussion of findings. The results suggest that the effective documentation of memes requires careful attention to expressive and contextual dimensions, such as cultural and ideological references, as well as the visual and emotional components embedded within the images. The proposed structure enables a multilayered description of meme content, emphasizing the need to account for both the literal elements within the image and the underlying intentions and meanings. It is therefore concluded that the representation of memes demands a contextualized approach, recognizing their inherently multimodal nature. A robust representation – enriched with metadata that captures even the circulation of memes – can contribute significantly to preserving contemporary social and cultural memory, while requiring analytical sensitivity and interdisciplinary expertise from information professionals.