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Big Mood: Ambient Suffering and Depression Memes

Beach, Sarah
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou161899951719584

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Communication Studies (Communication).
Depression memes represent attunements toward suffering in post-modernity, which is characterized by a heightened awareness to symptoms of depression as inherent elements of daily living. Internet memers comment “mood” on markers of suffering loosely correlated with depression symptoms but largely inferring the inherent heaviness of post-modern life. Theories of ambient rhetoric (Rickert, 2013) suggest that rhetorical texts are the “scaffolding” that constitute the realities in which we live. This dissertation delves into two major components of ambient rhetoric (affect theory and circulation theory) to support a broader project linking depression memes as ambient, ambivalent building blocks of contemporary mental health discourses. Ambivalence (Phillips & Milner, 2017) refers to the mixed quality of internet feelings. Utilizing a sample of depression memes from Reddit, along with a variety of other rhetorical texts, I make a case for depression memes as the ambient “scaffolding” (Rickert, 2013) that supports post-modern existence.
Roger Aden (Committee Chair)
Prashant Rajan (Committee Member)
Benjamin Bates (Committee Member)
Ryan Shepherd (Committee Member)
227 p.
Communication; Rhetoric
social media; memes; rhetoric; depression; depression memes; ambience; ambient rhetoric; enthymeme

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Beach, S. (2021). Big Mood: Ambient Suffering and Depression Memes [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou161899951719584

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Beach, Sarah. Big Mood: Ambient Suffering and Depression Memes. 2021. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou161899951719584.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Beach, Sarah. "Big Mood: Ambient Suffering and Depression Memes." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou161899951719584

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou161899951719584
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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.