Currently in progress…

Abstract: The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), is media format that has often been overlooked or underexplored in critical examinations of digital communication technology, yet gifs are used almost ubiquitously, whether by politicians engaging in policy debates online or by friends sending a quick message to one another. Many gifs use images, video or animations of minorities, non-Western, and individuals from non-hegemonic groups expressing emotion or engaging in culturally specific behaviors and as such, raise questions about “what is being performed, whose bodies are being used to ‘perform’ our emotional reactions online, and what remains” (Hautsch & Cook, 2021, p. 75). This project addresses these types of questions by examining how the gif’s banality has normalized the ways in which gifs draw on and perform affective, socio-cultural, and political discourses and performativities. As such, this project utilizes a multi-method qualitative approach – thematic content analysis and critical technocultural discourse analysis – to interrogate the way in which popular gifs enable a type of identity tourism and re-inscription and performance of problematic social norms and biases.