Feelings, opinions and current events

Students agree on the fact that memes can inform people about current events and help them deal with current topics. The average value of 2,08 (σ=0,996) highlights that the students agree with this memes’ function. This is also emphasized by Fink (2020), who claims that teenagers nowadays get their news from memes. Hence, they stay informed about current events and happening through memes. These events are often addressed in a mocking and satirizing way,

which highlights how teenagers may perceive events differently from those who do not engage in this way with memes. Furthermore, comparing the findings with existing literature, it appears that students could confirm Fink’s (2020) explanation that teenagers use memes to personally express their opinions on certain events or topic. Not only do young people express and share their opinions through memes, but also their feelings and emotions. In fact, findings reveal that the students who participated in the study believe that memes can (help) express personal opinions and emotions, presenting a mean value of 2,278 (σ=0,943) which confirms the respondents’ positive attitude towards this memes’ function. Not only do students see potential in memes as an aid for expressing personal feelings, but a mean value of 2,3 (σ=1,0087) reveals that, on average, the participants themselves already got to know other people’s or nations’

opinions regarding specific topics by looking at memes. Thus, students appear to be both, aware of a meme’s possible function as a tool for sharing emotions and beliefs, and familiar with memes, whose content includes other people’s opinions and feelings that participants have reportedly already learned about and can be reflected on. This emphasizes that, as Mina (2019) claims, memes can give voice to so many. Not only can people express their beliefs and opinions through the creation or remixing of memes (Boa Sorte, 2019), but they can also become aware of different perspectives and points of view through memes. Instead of expressing their feelings and opinions in an essay, students can use innovative and creative ways of sharing their thoughts and attitudes, for example, by putting their emotions into a hybrid of an image and text and adding a humorous note to it. This could not only facilitate the presentation, due to the visual support of an argument through images, as well as the addressing of the respective issues, but it could also reduce the students’ stress level and anxiety and additionally promote a more relaxed class atmosphere. The importance of visual literacy, which usually affects memes in general, is stressed by Crystal (2004) and the positive effects of humor and humorous elements in the classrooms are also emphasized by Baysac (2017), who conducted a study that shows the positive impact of humor on class learning. The sharing of emotions, beliefs and opinions through memes can arise from debates on several topics, such as social or cultural issues, politics or even specific people. Memes may represent political opinions, attitudes on society or current situations or events. Students can take sides and create memes that represent their point of view and hence express their personal feelings and get confronted with other perspectives as well. Taking the example of the Cat Cake Meme, which is one of the memes that were included in the questionnaire, the feelings and sensations of a language learner were expressed and depicted in a creative and innovative way, using a comparison between a cat and a cake. Not only might the meme address one single person’s

perceptions, but the more it is being shared, the more it might appear that the attitudes that are expressed in the Cat Cake Meme can be generalized and do also affect and concern other language learners as well. Similarly, Fink (2020) highlights young people’s expression of emotions through memes by mentioning the example of the killing of the Iranian commander Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and the consecutive World War III announcement. While adults appeared to be rather preoccupied and concerned, teenagers addressed this topic through memes in a satirizing and mocking way, taking away the seriousness and simultaneously sharing and reflecting their feeling towards this event in the meme(s). The same can be assumed for the Cat Cake Meme. The struggles of a language learner are depicted in a humorous way. This may serve the mitigation of the addressed issue, which is also stressed by Boring-Bray (2018), who states that teenagers use humor also for expressing their fears and that they may use memes to talk about emotions while trying to mitigate the level of concern. Boa Sorte (2019) explains that through the own creation and remixing of memes in the classroom, students can be given the opportunity to express those feelings and emotions through memes. As Chapman and Foot (1977) state, humor points out attitudes, lays foundations of trust and can change social attitudes. Hence, as memes are always associated with humor or humorous elements, their depiction and promotion of the diversity and variety of opinions, ideally leads to a reflection on and acceptance of other people’s opinions. Taking into consideration Boa Sorte’s suggestion, as well as the study’s findings, the use and creation of memes in the classroom for addressing and sharing students’ personal beliefs, attitudes, perceptions or emotions appears to be a modern way of dealing with certain situations, as well as a creative way to get more insight into young people’s lives. The selected research method for the present study rendered investigations and findings rather limited and superficial, in other words descriptive. Based on the study’s findings, it can be assumed that memes can support the sharing of and learning about feelings and opinions. Nevertheless, explanatory and practical studies, which focus on a closer examination of the input given by the present study as well as existing literature, would be necessary to confirm the extent, to which emotions can really be transmitted and shared through memes.

Moreover, practical investigations that include the creation of memes with students could find out whether memes can really raise awareness of the existence of various attitudes and beliefs, as well as of the importance of accepting other people’s opinions and feelings.

Generally, findings reveal that memes could be used for learning about various topics. Results show that, according to the survey participants, this is mainly true for learning about vocabulary and phrases, society and stereotypes and current events. Even though the students appeared to have learned least about culture, in particular sights and geography, the overall term culture is

nevertheless depicted quite frequently in memes, considering that society and stereotypes are part of culture as well. As Shifman (2014) points out, memes can globally, culturally and socially connect people. In fact, students reported on having experienced personal improvements regarding language knowledge, as well as sociocultural knowledge. Young adults are often very familiar with memes, which is also stressed by Fink (2020), who claims that young adults get quite a lot of information from memes, and Prensky (2001), who defines students nowadays as Digital Natives. Hence, due to this familiarity with memes, they might also know how to “read” memes properly. People who are not familiar with the meme world may not understand some memes and insiders. Due to the fact that many memes are remixed and recreated (Shifman, 2014), people come across many versions of memes that show the content of a meme in different contexts. The more contexts a meme is put in, the more familiar and popular it becomes and the more relatable or identifiable it becomes. In other words, this may facilitate a better understanding of some memes that might be a little complex or hard to understand due to hidden messages or required background knowledge. The familiarity with and popularity of memes could be the reason why students generally believe that memes can promote language learning and the expansion of cultural, social or other knowledge and why they were able to learn something from this modern digital element. A good example for a very familiar and popular meme is the Leonardo di Caprio Meme, which has been used for the creation of a variety of memes. The fact that it is used in various contexts could promote an easier and better understanding of the meme itself and consequently provide a facilitated learning approach.

5.2 Selected memes’ function as a teaching and learning tool and intentions and ideas on