Make America Meme Again

Acknowledgments

This project began over a series of frenetic text messages, each attempting to make sense of the new landscape of digital propaganda. Both of us were trying to understand how our mediated friends and family members could fall so easily for obviously dubious persuasive tactics. As more information unfolded, we found that we, too, had been courted by such communiqués—this time by (at least) targeted messages from Russia’s Internet Research Agency. We also discovered that we were compelled to name and analyze what was happening—we could not sit idly by and not use our skills to help citizens grapple with ongoing information wars. Our individual areas of expertise, historical uses of propaganda, visual rhetoric, digital ecosystems, and algorithmic amplification, enabled us a certain level of know-how, but also provided us enough background information to underscore how much more we, and the general public, needed to learn about the new landscape of psychological operations. We have learned much over the course of this project. There is still much to discover and we hope that this project is a beginning, one that invests in areas of research that require ongoing and robust analysis.

We have quite a few folks to thank for helping us complete this project. First, we would like to thank Kathryn Harrison, who saw potential in this project and kept us invested in the work and the vision of Peter Lang and the←xi | xii→ Frontiers in Political Communication series. We are also deeply indebted to Mitchell S. McKinney and Mary E. Stuckey. Both of these editors devoted themselves to bettering this project and understood our goals and insights—sometimes better than we did. This project is stronger from their astute guidance and energetic support.

Colleagues at both of our home institutions have enabled the success of this book. At Baylor, Scott Varda was a precise editor who dropped everything to help us when we needed it. He is a champion of good scholarship and we could not have finished this project without him. Fielding Montgomery and Alden Conner contributed significant time and effort to helping us finish this project. David Schlueter facilitated our efforts by finding us resources and time to do the work. Martin J. Medhurst, as always, offered his wisdom and insights whenever we needed it. The College of Arts and Sciences also supplied Leslie Hahner with leave time to engage this book. Theresa Varney Kennedy, Kara Poe Alexander, and Beth Allison Barr bettered early work for this project through their wonderful advice. The women’s writing group started by Lisa Shaver buoyed this endeavor when it could have rested in the doldrums of Leslie Hahner’s associate professorship. At Kansas State University, the intellectual community comprised of Soumia Bardhan, Soo-Hye Han, Tim Shaffer, Travis Smith, William James Taylor (JT), Darren Epping, and Craig Brown inspired deep thinking about communication’s democratic possibilities. Alex McVey critiqued early (and also late) drafts of several chapters, and challenged us to carefully imagine a future, mediated politics. Greg Paul and Melissa Winkel supported the project logistically, often in pivotal, behind-the-scenes ways. Jakki Mattson provided critical research for chapters one and four, while also serving as a sounding board for ideas. Colene Lind and Sarah Riforgiate gave really good advice. Natalie Pennington was a thoughtful interlocutor and advocate. Joe Koehle shared dank memes (and how to find them). At the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Kumi Silva provided excellent advice (as always).

We are also thankful to scholars across our field who helped us through productive conversations and advice. We are particularly grateful to Heather Ashley Hayes, Casey Ryan Kelly, Ryan Milner, Damien Pfister, Jonathan Carter, Rachel Winter, Emily Winderman, Atilla Hallsby, and Dustin Greenwalt. As well, Jennifer Coates Millard was an astute and rigorous copyeditor for early work in this project. We are likewise grateful for the legal services and advice of John Cook, who is brilliant and helpful, as per usual.←xii | xiii→

This project is inspired by our students. It could not exist without the scholarly fruit harvested from the relationships between teachers and students. In particular, students from Heather Woods’ Contemporary Rhetorical Theory graduate class and undergraduate classes in Rhetoric in Western Thought and The Rhetoric of Social Movements studied memes alongside us, participating in the struggles and delights of rhetorically engaging an emerging genre of political discourse. Calvin Horne and Jeremy Williams shared with us several of the memes referenced in this volume. Students in Leslie Hahner’s Theories and Methods of Visual Communication supplied astute observations about digital propaganda. We have also learned from one another as teacher and student, each occupying both roles in various ways throughout our tenures. We continue to learn from our students and endeavor to give them our very best insights on pressing matters. This work has helped us reach toward that end and reminded us to continually wrestle with the ever-changing conditions of late capitalism. Ultimately, then, we dedicate this project to those who would fight for radical changes in the worlds in which we live, to the people’s victory over hegemonic interests. We are far from that future, but we can use our rhetorical skills to invent new pathways toward it.←xiii | xiv→ ←xiv | 1→