Author(s)
Tama LeaverKeywords
#Ch9FailAustralia
Australian press
broadcast
community
deliberative democracy
digital discourse
habitus
internet memes
lulz
lulzbroadcast
mainstream media
Olympic Games
participation
rick rolling
social networks
television
Troll
trolling
Youtube
Communication. Mass media
P87-96
Philology. Linguistics
P1-1091
Language and Literature
P
DOAJ:Media and communication
DOAJ:Social Sciences
Technology (General)
T1-995
Technology
T
DOAJ:Technology (General)
DOAJ:Technology and Engineering
Full record
Show full item recordAbstract
While the mainstream press have often used the accusation of trolling to cover almost any form of online abuse, the term itself has a long and changing history. In scholarly work, trolling has morphed from a description of newsgroup and discussion board commentators who appeared genuine but were actually just provocateurs, through to contemporary analyses which focus on the anonymity, memes and abusive comments most clearly represented by users of the iconic online image board 4chan, and, at times, the related Anonymous political movement. To explore more mainstream examples of what might appear to be trolling at first glance, this paper analyses the Channel Nine Fail (Ch9Fail) Facebook group which formed in protest against the quality of the publicly broadcast Olympic Games coverage in Australia in 2012. While utilising many tools of trolling, such as the use of memes, deliberately provocative humour and language, targeting celebrities, and attempting to provoke media attention, this paper argues that the Ch9Fail group actually demonstrates the increasingly mainstream nature of many online communication strategies once associated with trolls. The mainstreaming of certain activities which have typified trolling highlight these techniques as part of a more banal everyday digital discourse; despite mainstream media presenting trolls are extremist provocateurs, many who partake in trolling techniques are simply ordinary citizens expressing themselves online.Date
2014-04-01Type
ArticleIdentifier
oai:doaj.org/article:2b59feb9b93747c1ad554d51318763421449-1443
1449-1443
https://doaj.org/article/2b59feb9b93747c1ad554d5131876342