Covid-19 WhatsApp sticker memes in Oman (original) (raw)

Discourse & Society, 2022

Abstract

In this paper, the form and function of personalized Covid-19 WhatsApp sticker memes created and shared as social laments by citizens in Oman are examined. The compiled data set of 288 WhatsApp stickers was taken from a larger ethnographic project on Arabs and Covid-19. To collect and analyze the data, perspectives from visual semiotics were integrated with participatory and geosemiotic approaches to ground the stickers socially and globally. Six functions of Covid-19 WhatsApp stickers in Oman were identified: expressing political dissent, creating public signs, promoting religious agenda, indexing frustration, expressing levity, and constructing counter-discourse. Based on this analysis, it is suggested that by creating and using WhatsApp stickers during the 2020–2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Omani citizens positioned themselves as agentive participants in charge of their own lives, thus, solidifying a decade-long request for a new form of public-government relationship. The paper adds to research on Arabic digital communication and pandemic discourse.

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