How Culture Hooks

The Hidden Life of Memeforms

Beneath every social structure, movement, and individual decision lies an undercurrent of symbolic transmission. Culture does not replicate through mere behavior. It lives and evolves through the embedding of linguistic, visual, and emotional patterns that travel between bodies, across generations, and into systems. These patterns, often compressed into units of meaning, do not float in abstraction. They are shaped, encoded, interpreted, and internalized within living, situated environments. They cohere when they find resonance. They mutate when they meet friction.

This essay weaves together three core explorations. First, it distinguishes between memes and memeforms, drawing attention to the structural and relational features that make cultural patterns capable of internalization rather than mere replication. Second, it explores the concept of internalization fitness, offering a dual lens for understanding why some memeforms take root deeply while others disintegrate. And third, it examines the process of encoding: how symbolic forms are crafted, intentionally or ambiently, to enter the circuits of cultural life.

Together, these inquiries provide a foundation for understanding how meaning enters into life, not only as noise or narrative, but as a form that shapes cognition, emotion, and behavior. The aim is not to reduce culture to code, but to uncover the architectures that make its transmission intelligible and its evolution visible. If the Infoscape is the vast field in which signs move and clash, then this essay is a guide to the mechanics by which some signs survive the journey and transform those who carry them.

Memes and Memeforms: A Distinction of Structure and Function

I. Why Terminology Matters

In contemporary discourse, the term "meme" has become ubiquitous. It refers loosely to viral images, humorous posts, or cultural catchphrases. This popular usage, while accessible, obscures a deeper analytical potential. Without terminological precision, we risk collapsing fundamentally distinct processes under a single vague heading. In the study of symbolic coordination and cultural engineering, it is essential to distinguish between the meme as an event and the memeform as a structural pattern that persists beneath or beyond any particular instance.

Terminology frames inquiry. When we conflate memes with memeforms, we collapse the distinction between expression and architecture, between output and code. If we are to understand not only how cultural content spreads, but how it embeds, mutates, and sustains meaning, we require more than surface description. We need a vocabulary that can account for cultural structure.

II. The Classic “Meme”

Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of the meme in The Selfish Gene (1976), where he described it as a unit of cultural transmission or imitation. Just as genes replicate through biological evolution, memes replicate through imitation, variation, and selection in the cultural sphere. They include everything from melodies and fashions to techniques and slogans.

Dawkins’ formulation was powerful in its time, but it lacked clarity about mechanisms. Memes, in his model, were treated as simple replicators, somewhat passive, moving between minds like viruses. While this analogy made the concept compelling, it also limited its explanatory capacity. The meme was imagined as a discrete object that replicated with high fidelity, but cultural transmission rarely functions in this manner. Meaning is interpreted, recontextualized, and transformed in each act of uptake.

More recent theorists have critiqued this simplification, emphasizing that memes do not replicate through mere copying. Rather, they adapt through contextual interpretation and recombination (Blackmore, 1999; Gabora, 2011). The meme is less a virus and more a performance. This insight sets the stage for a more nuanced conceptual tool: the memeform.

III. The Memeform Defined

A memeform is the underlying pattern that makes a meme possible. It is the structural and semiotic code that enables replication, interpretation, and internalization. Whereas a meme is an expression, such as a tweet, a slogan, or a GIF, a memeform is the design architecture that shapes that expression and determines its resonance.

Memeforms function like genotypes. They are not the visible organism, but the symbolic blueprint. A memeform encodes a range of potential expressions, each tailored by context, interpretation, and emotional valence. Just as a single genetic sequence can manifest differently depending on environmental conditions, a memeform can express differently across cultural environments.

Crucially, memeforms are internalizable. They are not limited to visible content, but include narrative templates, emotional scripts, perceptual frames, and procedural rituals. For instance, the memeform of “heroic struggle against oppression” appears in historical epics, political resistance slogans, and video game plotlines. Its content shifts, but its deep structure persists.

This makes memeforms more than replicators. They are semiotic infrastructures. They shape how we perceive, what we prioritize, and how we relate to others. They are not simply viral. They are architectural.

IV. Memes as Expressed Instances of Memeforms

The relationship between meme and memeform can be analogized to that between speech and grammar. A meme is an instantiation, an event. A memeform is the latent structure that governs the possibility of such instantiations. Memes are performative, immediate, and fleeting. Memeforms are enduring, internalized, and generative.

Take the example of Pepe the Frog. The image macro “Pepe crying” or “Pepe smug” is a meme. But the memeform behind Pepe is the use of ambiguous cartoon imagery to channel affectively resonant but contextually flexible emotional states. This memeform allows the image to be appropriated across political movements, affective contexts, and ideological positions. The meme is transient. The memeform persists.

This distinction matters analytically. If we study only the meme, we limit our focus to short-term content. If we study the memeform, we trace deeper patterns of cultural influence, semiotic drift, and symbolic habit.

V. Memeplexes and Nested Memeforms

Memeforms rarely exist in isolation. They cluster into memeplexes, coherent systems of interdependent memeforms. These can include political ideologies, religious cosmologies, subcultural aesthetics, or brand mythologies. A memeplex is a symbolic ecology. It consists of narrative, symbolic, and behavioral memeforms that reinforce one another and co-evolve.

For instance, neoliberal ideology functions as a memeplex. It contains economic memeforms (market efficiency), moral memeforms (individual responsibility), and institutional memeforms (privatization as progress). Each of these memeforms can be expressed independently, but they gain coherence and traction when embedded in the larger system.

Memeplexes are often stabilized through rituals, educational institutions, and media. They provide not only meaning but identity scaffolding. Breaking from a memeplex is rarely cognitive alone, it is existential. This explains why people resist new memeforms that contradict their internalized memeplex. The challenge is not informational, but structural.

Furthermore, memeforms may be nested. A single memeform can exist within multiple memeplexes. Consider the memeform of “awakening.” It appears in spiritual, scientific, political, and aesthetic contexts. Its interpretation varies, but its deep structure (emergence from blindness into insight) remains legible.

VI. Analytical Utility of the Memeform Concept

Why does this distinction matter? The concept of the memeform allows us to study cultural evolution with greater precision. It shifts analysis from surface content to deep structure. This has applications in:

• Cultural critique: By revealing which memeforms shape perception, behavior, and policy.

• Education and pedagogy: By designing content with high internalization fitness.

• Media ecology: By mapping how memeforms mutate across platforms and publics.

• Cultural design: By generating intentional memeforms that encourage desired forms of coordination, reflection, or care.

Moreover, memeform analysis allows us to account for both stability and change. Memeforms persist, but they are not static. They evolve through mutation, recombination, and selective reinforcement. By tracking this process, we can understand how ideologies shift, how new identities emerge, and how cultural meaning becomes material force.

In the saturated Infoscape, the memeform concept helps us navigate. It provides a map, not just of where memes are going, but of where they come from, and what they do once embedded.

Internalization Fitness: The Suitability and Fit of Memeforms

I. Why Some Memeforms Take Root

In every saturated information environment, there exists a silent but critical question: Why do some symbolic patterns embed themselves deeply in the psyche or the collective consciousness, while others flash and vanish? The answer cannot lie solely in the frequency of exposure or the virality of transmission. Cultural history is littered with ephemeral slogans and once-promising movements that failed to secure lasting traction. What endures must resonate not only with the attention span but with the deeper architecture of internal meaning-making. This capacity to be taken in, to be folded into the emotional-cognitive structure of individuals and collectives, is what we refer to as internalization fitness.

Internalization fitness is not a simple metric of popularity. Nor is it reducible to the reproduction rate of a meme. Rather, it is the degree to which a memeform is suited for uptake, resonance, and integration into an existing or emergent internalization architecture. While virality may explain transmission, it does not explain sedimentation; the process through which an idea becomes infrastructure for further thought, emotion, and action.

Understanding internalization fitness, therefore, requires a dual focus. On the one hand, we must assess the structure and design of the memeform itself. On the other hand, we must examine the architecture into which it enters, and how it relates to that environment’s needs, vulnerabilities, and latent patterns.

II. Dual Dimensions of Internalization Fitness

Internalization fitness emerges at the intersection of two dimensions: pattern fit and uptake suitability.

A. Pattern Fit

Pattern fit refers to the degree of congruence between a memeform and the existing symbolic, emotional, and cognitive architecture of its receiver. This includes an individual’s beliefs, prior narratives, emotional needs, traumas, social affiliations, and interpretive lenses. If a memeform aligns with pre-existing mental-emotional structures, it will be more likely to be accepted, absorbed, and reproduced. Conversely, if it clashes with those structures or fails to connect to them, it may be dismissed, ignored, or resisted (Snow et al., 1986).

Pattern fit explains why certain messages resonate more strongly with particular identity groups. A slogan like “Take Back Control,” deployed during the Brexit referendum, activated a latent narrative of sovereignty, autonomy, and grievance within certain populations in the UK. Its success was not due merely to its simplicity, but to its ability to slot into existing internalization structures shaped by decades of post-imperial decline, neoliberal disenfranchisement, and cultural fragmentation.

B. Uptake Suitability

Uptake suitability refers to the attributes of the memeform itself: its design, emotional tone, cognitive load, and sensory qualities. A memeform that is simple, emotionally charged, easily remembered, and performatively repeatable is more likely to be internalized, regardless of its truth-value or ethical implications.

Certain features tend to increase uptake suitability. These include:

• Narrative closure: a beginning, middle, and end that offers resolution

• Affective resonance: emotional charge, especially fear, pride, shame, or hope

• Iconicity: a distinctive visual, phrase, or tone that makes the memeform identifiable and repeatable

• Social echoability: the ease with which the memeform can be re-shared, re-performed, or referenced in conversation

Uptake suitability does not guarantee deep embedding, but it primes the memeform for potential internalization if pattern fit is present. Together, these two dimensions interact to determine internalization fitness.

III. Structural Features That Increase Uptake

While pattern fit concerns the receiver, uptake suitability concerns the structural composition of the memeform. The following features are commonly observed in high-fitness memeforms:

• Repetition and Rhythm: Regularity and predictability in language or image patterns aid memory. Chantable slogans and rhythmic refrains can bypass rational filters and enter deeper affective layers (Lull, 2000).

• Imageability and Emotional Hook: Visual and affective cues engage the limbic system and anchor abstraction in sensation. A crying child, a flag, or a raised fist are all imageable carriers of emotional weight (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001).

• Familiar Scaffolding with Novel Twist: Memeforms that present something familiar, yet slightly altered, activate cognitive fluency while maintaining novelty. This balance sustains attention and invites reinterpretation (Berlyne, 1971).

• Ease of Re-performance: Memeforms that can be easily shared, mimicked, or adapted (such as catchphrases, memes, rituals, or aesthetic cues) benefit from cultural iterability. Repetition by others reinforces internalization through social validation.

These features, though not exhaustive, point toward the semiotic engineering of high-fitness memeforms. Cultural producers, whether consciously or not, often leverage these structural affordances to enhance the staying power of ideas.

IV. Internalization Architecture: The Host Environment

Memeforms do not embed themselves in a cultural vacuum. They enter into architectures shaped by personal biography, social rituals, institutional patterns, and collective identity formations. This host environment, what we refer to as internalization architecture, is not static. It is dynamic, relational, and shaped by affective and symbolic labor across a lifetime.

Several factors condition internalization readiness:

• Cultural Exposure: Individuals embedded in certain cultural ecologies have different symbolic baselines. A memeform about ancestral healing may resonate in indigenous or diasporic contexts, while falling flat in hyper-rationalist subcultures.

• Trust Networks: Whether a memeform is trusted often depends on the social networks through which it is transmitted. People are more likely to internalize ideas when those ideas come from relationally proximate or socially credible sources (Granovetter, 1973).

• Identity Frames: A memeform that affirms one’s identity is more easily absorbed. Conversely, if it is experienced as threatening or dissonant with one’s sense of self, rejection is likely (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).

• Trauma and Belonging: Openings for new internalizations are often formed in moments of emotional rupture. After trauma or destabilization, individuals are more receptive to memeforms that offer coherence, safety, or belonging, even if those forms later prove harmful.

• Collective Rituals: Embedding is reinforced through repeated social performance. Rituals, holidays, chants, and shared practices embed symbolic meaning into collective memory (Turner, 1969).
  
  

Understanding internalization architecture requires recognizing the porousness of the individual psyche. The human subject is not a passive receiver, but a node in a symbolic mesh. Each memeform that takes root does so through entanglement.

V. Examples of High-Fitness Memeforms

To concretize this analysis, let us briefly examine several memeforms that have demonstrated high internalization fitness.

• “Black Lives Matter”: This memeform, while simple in phrasing, carried immense resonance. Its pattern fit connected with centuries of Black resistance, while its uptake suitability was heightened through visual protest, hashtag usage, and chantable form. Its mutation across contexts from street art to policy platforms demonstrates symbolic plasticity as well as internalization depth.

• “Flatten the Curve”: During the COVID-19 pandemic, this memeform succeeded by offering visual clarity, moral urgency, and actionable meaning. The curve image provided cognitive simplicity, while the phrase invited civic participation. Its uptake was not just informational; it was moral.

• Patriotic Rituals and Brand Iconography: National flags, corporate logos, and brand jingles represent slow, sedimented memeforms reinforced through ritual repetition, institutional power, and emotional association. Their internalization fitness lies not in novelty but in repetition, authority, and affective anchoring.

VI. When Internalization Fails or Backfires

Not all memeforms succeed. Some are rejected outright. Others are absorbed in shallow ways, leading to performative uptake without deep embedding. Still others mutate into unintended forms. Failure modes include:

• Misfit with Identity Frame: A memeform that contradicts a person’s core identity may trigger defensive interpretation or outright rejection. Attempts at persuasion often backfire when perceived as assaults on selfhood.

• Encoding-Context Mismatch: A memeform that is well-designed in one context may fail in another. Without sensitivity to cultural context, even ethically sound memeforms can be rendered inert or harmful.

• Viral Uptake with Shallow Internalization: Certain memeforms achieve rapid spread but little depth. Trend fatigue, meme burnout, or ironic detachment can lead to quick abandonment. These are the symbolic equivalents of fast food, by which I mean they are high in stimulus, but low in nutrition.

Understanding failure is as important as understanding success. It reveals the limits of transmission-focused models and points toward the necessity of deeper engagement with internal architectures.

VII. Designing for Fitness Without Coercion

To end, we must ask: What are the ethical stakes of designing memeforms with high internalization fitness? There is a long and troubling history of symbolic manipulation in propaganda, advertising, and political communication. The tools of semiotic engineering can be used to entrench hegemony as easily as to cultivate liberation.

Yet the answer is not to abandon the practice, but to ground it in care. Designing for fitness without coercion means:

• Reflexivity: Designers must be aware of their own positionalities and biases.

• Transparency: Where possible, the mechanisms of symbolic influence should be legible and open to critique.

• Consent: Individuals and communities should retain agency in what they choose to internalize.

• Stewardship: The goal of cultural design should not be domination, but the cultivation of symbolic ecosystems that support wellbeing, plurality, and coordination.

To steward the symbolic, rather than manipulate it, is the challenge before us. Internalization fitness is a powerful analytic and generative tool. Used wisely, it allows us to repair a fractured Infoscape. Used carelessly, it risks deepening the crisis.

The Encoding of Memeforms

I. Encoding as Cultural Origination

To understand how meaning circulates, we must first understand how it is born. The process of encoding lies at the root of all symbolic systems. It refers to the inscription of meaning into a communicable form, whether linguistic, visual, auditory, or behavioral. Encoding is the initial gesture that sets a memeform in motion. It is the first point in the semiotic-memetic chain, preceding transmission, interpretation, and internalization. Without encoding, there is no cultural unit to replicate, mutate, or embed.

Encoding, however, is not simply the mechanical act of expression. It is a situated, historically informed, and power-laden process. Who encodes, in what context, and with what purpose, all shape the trajectory of a memeform’s life. To study encoding is to study the origin of cultural influence.

Encoding also sits at the interface of intention and emergence. Some memeforms are deliberately constructed, while others surface through ambient cultural dynamics. Most are hybrid, combining elements of intentional design with spontaneous adaptation. Thus, a comprehensive theory of encoding must account for both its deliberate and its ambient dimensions.

II. Three Modes of Encoding: Intentional, Ambient, and Hybrid

Encoding can be categorized along a spectrum from intentional to ambient, with hybrid forms being the norm in actual cultural practice.

1. Intentional Encoding

Intentional encoding occurs when individuals or groups deliberately design a communicative form to express a particular meaning. This type of encoding is common in political messaging, advertising, ideological movements, and religious doctrine. Here, the encoder seeks to create a sign that is not only legible but persuasive. The memeform is crafted to anchor interpretation, reduce ambiguity, and increase uptake.

A classic example is the wartime propaganda poster. From Uncle Sam’s “I Want You” to the Red Army’s “Motherland Calls,” these signs were deliberately engineered to elicit a coordinated emotional and behavioral response. In contemporary contexts, corporate branding operates similarly. Logos, taglines, and color palettes are meticulously encoded with affective and symbolic associations, crafted through market research and psychological testing (Williamson, 1978).

Intentional encoding assumes a level of semiotic control. However, as Stuart Hall (1980) noted in his encoding/decoding model, no encoding can guarantee interpretation. The encoded message is always susceptible to resistant or negotiated readings. Nonetheless, intentionality plays a significant role in shaping the structure and initial function of a memeform.

2. Ambient Encoding

Ambient encoding refers to the inscription of meaning that occurs without deliberate design. It arises through the sedimentation of social practice, linguistic drift, visual culture, and technological constraint. Ambient encoding is especially visible in meme culture, where users reappropriate existing symbols, images, or phrases in new ways, often without a clear authorial intention.

For example, the widespread use of reaction GIFs draws on a collectively encoded repertoire of facial expressions and emotional cues. The meaning of these GIFs is not centrally designed but emerges from recursive use across platforms and communities. The same applies to vernacular speech patterns on TikTok or Twitter, where certain phrases take on memetic charge simply through repetition and affective context.

Ambient encoding highlights the systemic nature of cultural emergence. It shows that meaning is not always imposed from above, but can bubble up from below, carried by mood, context, and affordance (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). This process is deeply entangled with platform architectures, which privilege certain formats, speeds, and feedback loops over others. Encoding, in this mode, is more ecological than instrumental.

3. Hybrid Encoding

In practice, most memeforms are hybrids. They originate with some degree of intention, yet evolve through ambient uptake and adaptation. A political slogan, for example, may be intentionally coined, but it only becomes a cultural force when it is adopted, distorted, remixed, or ritualized by broader publics.

Consider the phrase “Defund the Police.” Its initial encoding was politically intentional, aimed at redirecting municipal budgets away from policing and toward social services. However, as it circulated, it underwent ambient reencoding. To some, it came to mean total police abolition. To others, it signaled moderate reform. To many opponents, it served as a caricature of leftist extremism. The memeform did not remain static. Its encoding fractured as it entered a contested discursive field.

Hybrid encoding reflects the reality that cultural production is rarely centralized or singular. It is iterative, contested, and constantly in flux.

III. The Semiotic Layers of Encoding

Encoding does not occur on a single plane. It operates across multiple semiotic layers, each influencing how the memeform will be received and recontextualized.

1. Denotative and Connotative Encoding

Barthes (1972) famously distinguished between denotation: the literal or primary meaning of a sign, and connotation: the secondary meanings it accrues through culture and ideology. For example, a national flag denotes a country, but connotes patriotism, sacrifice, or colonial violence, depending on the context.

Encoding must be analyzed at both levels. The denotative layer determines basic recognizability. The connotative layer activates emotional and ideological resonance. High-impact memeforms tend to operate strongly on the connotative level, drawing from deep mythologies and identity structures.

2. Polysemy and Ambiguity

Memeforms often function precisely because they are polysemic. They offer enough openness to allow different audiences to project meaning onto them. This makes them viral, but also unstable. Polysemy can be a design feature or a vulnerability. It enables broad uptake but invites conflicting interpretations.

Intentional encoders sometimes cultivate ambiguity strategically. This is common in corporate messaging or populist rhetoric, where phrases are crafted to mean different things to different groups. For example, “America First” invokes nationalism, economic protectionism, and xenophobia, depending on the audience. Encoding here becomes a form of strategic vagueness.

IV. Encoding and Power

Encoding is not a neutral act. It is a site of power. To encode is to shape meaning in ways that align with particular interests. Control over encoding processes—who gets to name, frame, and symbolize—corresponds with cultural dominance.

Foucault (1972) argued that knowledge production is entangled with power. The ability to encode a phenomenon in authoritative terms; to name a social condition as “disorder,” “innovation,” or “threat”, influences how it is governed and lived. In the media, this power becomes visible in framing. News outlets encode the same event as “riot” or “protest,” depending on their ideological slant. Thus, encoding shapes reality as much as it reflects it.

Encoding is also shaped by material access. Those with institutional or technological privilege are more likely to have their memeforms reach saturation. Grassroots encodings often require greater creativity to bypass gatekeepers and establish traction.

V. Encoding and Mutation Potential

One of the paradoxes of encoding is that stability can hinder adaptation, while openness can invite distortion. A tightly encoded memeform may preserve its intended meaning but resist uptake. A loosely encoded form may spread quickly but lose coherence.

Memeforms that endure tend to strike a balance between form rigidity and interpretive flexibility. They carry enough symbolic structure to preserve identity across iterations, but enough openness to allow local adaptation. This is analogous to biological systems, where genetic redundancy and regulatory pathways enable mutation without total dysfunction (Gabora, 2011).

Encoding that anticipates mutation, by embedding modularity, metaphor, or narrative scaffolding, tends to support memetic longevity. The best memeforms are not rigid scripts, but symbolic toolkits.

VI. Encoding Failure and Drift

Encoding can also fail. A memeform may be poorly constructed, ill-timed, or culturally tone-deaf. Alternatively, it may succeed initially but drift beyond its designers’ control.

Failure modes include:

• Overencoding: Too much specificity or ideological baggage restricts uptake.

• Underencoding: Vagueness causes the memeform to dissolve into noise.

• Encoding drift: Recirculation alters the form until it no longer resembles the original.

The memeform “OK Boomer” initially encoded generational frustration. As it spread, it was co-opted by brands, diluted by irony, and reframed as ageist by critics. Its encoding was not fixed, and its memetic arc reveals the limits of authorial control.

Encoding as a Cultural Act of Inception

Encoding is not the end of cultural production. It is the beginning. It sets in motion a chain of memetic and interpretive events that unfold across diverse terrains of meaning. Whether designed or emergent, encoding imprints a memeform with its initial trajectory. It influences how the form spreads, how it is read, and how deeply it embeds.

To engage in cultural engineering is to become an encoder, whether consciously or not. The question is not whether we encode, but how carefully, ethically, and reflexively we do so.

Toward a Generative Semiotics

In a world increasingly defined by overload, distortion, and symbolic volatility, it is not enough to identify what spreads. We must ask what sticks. We must ask how. Memeforms, as distinct from their more transient cousins, carry the potential to rewire the internal landscapes of those who absorb them. Yet that absorption is not passive. It is an act of coordination between the form and the self, between the message and the memory, and between the encoded signal and the world it enters.

To navigate this symbolic terrain is to become aware of the architectures that structure our meaning-making. Encoding is not a neutral act. It carries with it the weight of worldview, intention, and context. Internalization is not guaranteed. It is conditioned by resonance, trust, trauma, and social ritual. And fitness is never static. A memeform suitable for one context may become inert, or even toxic, in another.

This understanding is not simply analytic. It is generative. It invites new questions about how we design, share, and care for the symbols that shape us. It invites a practice of cultural stewardship that is neither technocratic nor manipulative, but rooted in reflexivity, consent, and the pursuit of coherence.

As we move deeper into the complexity of the Infoscape, we do not need more content. We need more clarity. And that clarity begins by seeing cultural transmission not as a wave of noise, but as a layered, living process. One that moves through us as much as we move through it.

References

Berlyne, D. E. (1971). Aesthetics and psychobiology. Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Blackmore, S. (1999). The meme machine. Oxford University Press.

Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. Hill and Wang.

Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford University Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press.

Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge. Pantheon Books.

Gabora, L. (2011). An evolutionary framework for culture: Selectionism versus communal exchange. Physics of Life Reviews, 8(2), 117–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2011.03.006

Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380.

Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, media, language (pp. 128–138). Routledge.

Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. Arnold.

Lull, J. (2000). Media, communication, culture: A global approach (2nd ed.). Columbia University Press.

Snow, D. A., Rochford Jr, E. B., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51(4), 464–481.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & L. W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Nelson-Hall.

Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Aldine.

Williamson, J. (1978). Decoding advertisements: Ideology and meaning in advertising. Marion Boyars.