A VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY: MEMES BY ARMY AND COMMUNICATION STYLE THROUGH TWITTER PLATFORM

Abstract

Humor has been used as a tool against oppression for a long time. With the advent of digital technology, memes have a become popular object in social media, especially in Twitter platform. Meme is an images which are communicated through social media that make fun of bring to light a social or cultural issue. This research aims to explore a meme by ARMY and communication style that used through Twitter platform. The method of this research is descriptive qualitative research. This research was obtained the data by ARMY members on the direct message on Twitter. The result of this research showed that meme by ARMY members give a message which is implied, they use some of meme for entertain for themselves and they also support for their idol, BTS. In this meme, ARMY depicts an exaggerated expression of BTS members, where they are very fanatical about their idols, the communication style applied through memes also affects the response of their followers because these memes contain entertainment and always support BTS members. Therefore, virtual ethnography also can be a powerful methodology for understanding online social communities and subcultures, such as a popular and widespread medium for internet-based interactions