LOCAL TEXT OF A PROVINCIAL TOWN IN INTERNET FOLKLORE

Year 2017, Volume: 3 Issue: 7, 113 - 116, 30.04.2017

Tatiana Zolotova Natalia Efimova

https://doi.org/10.18769/ijasos.309499

Abstract

In the given paper
the authors suggest a peculiar way of studying the 'local text'  of a town on the material of the Internet
folklore created by local population. Any town has an oral history reflected in
residents’ folklore both in its traditional and contemporary forms. To the
latter the authors refer such genres of the Internet folklore as memes, gifs,
and demotivators that are posted by a city’s residents on public pages of
social networking services.  The
above-mentioned genres have not been studied properly yet, especially in the
aspect of their contribution to the issue of urban folklore and local text. The
issue of the local text is an important matter in modern anthropology and
folklore studies.

The given paper is
based on the material concerning the local text of the town of Yoshkar-Ola
(Russian Federation), a provincial town but still a unique one in a variety of
aspects. The authors have been monitoring the contents of the public page
called Typical Yoshkar-Ola located on
the popular Russian social networking service VKontakte and have made a
collection of 343 memes revealing this or that aspect of the city life.
Overall, the analysis of this collection displays a vivid picture of citizens’
concerns and perception of the hometown. In the paper some elements of the
local text (experience of feeling provincial, citizens’ reaction to
construction works in the town, to the city’s routine and current problems,
etc.) are revealed and important observations over the pragmatics and semantics
of memes and gifs are presented.

Keywords

Yoshkar-Ola, local text, provinciality, social networking services, meme, Internet-folklore

References

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