Research Article
Deconstruction of Ethics in Visual Culture of Memes on Social Media
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.8-12-2018.2283848, author={S Sidhartani and Winny G W Wardani and D Pratama}, title={Deconstruction of Ethics in Visual Culture of Memes on Social Media}, proceedings={Proceedings of 1st Workshop on Environmental Science, Society, and Technology, WESTECH 2018, December 8th, 2018, Medan, Indonesia}, publisher={EAI}, proceedings_a={WESTECH}, year={2019}, month={6}, keywords={deconstruction ethics visual culture memes social media}, doi={10.4108/eai.8-12-2018.2283848} }- S Sidhartani
Winny G W Wardani
D Pratama
Year: 2019
Deconstruction of Ethics in Visual Culture of Memes on Social Media
WESTECH
EAI
DOI: 10.4108/eai.8-12-2018.2283848
Abstract
The existence of memes on social media has become a visual culture because it can meet the information and pleasure needs of visual technology users. The meme is considered effective for conveying messages to audiences with humorous visual language. However, meme creativity often also uses visual objects that tend to demean other people, such as exploit a woman's body. This is very contrary to ethics, the moral obligation of humans as social-cultural beings, by carrying out acts of gender discrimination and the tendency to make pornographic photos. This has been regulated in UU No. 7 of 1984 concerning the elimination of discrimination and UU No. 44 of 2008 concerning pornography. Quantitatively, this study presents the results of a survey of design student respondents who showed that most memes on social media tend to display sexual exploitation and demeaning others. Whereas qualitatively, this study discusses the deconstruction of ethics in meme design, according to an ethic of responsibility of the 20th Century from Hans Jonas, using sociology of design approach, that is reading the function of visual signs. The results of this study are expected to be able to invite the audience to better understand the visual language of memes, and be critical of the visualization of memes that connote violating moral norms. This study can also be a reference to the visual culture of memes based on more responsible ethics.
