(HYPER) MEDIA NARRATIVES BASED ON HUMOR: ANALYSIS OF MEMES ABOUT COVID-19 AND MEASURES OF SOCIAL ISOLATION IN ARGENTINA, MARCH TO NOVEMBER 2020

Abstract

The objective of the article is to describe and analyze 292 memes that circulated through Internet social networks about COVID-19 and the experience of Preventive and Obligatory Social Isolation in Argentina from March to November 2020. We carried out a qualitative analysis, grouping them into linked thematic categories as health, disease, care, prevention process, we identify main resources used and relate them to the context in which the memes were produced and circulated. Through the analysis of these issues, the resources used and their contextual relationship, we reconstruct narratives related to daily life during the pandemic, the management of health policy, preventive practices of the population, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID -19, the impact of social isolation and the pandemic on the family economy, on the educational experience, mental health and views on the year 2020 and the post-pandemic future. We conclude that memes, as sociocultural products closely related to the social, political, health and cultural / media context, built a way of narrating the uncertainty and reorganization of everyday life during the pandemic.