Synecdoche, Aesthetics, and the Sublime Online: Or, What’s a Religious Internet Meme?

@article{HadenChurch2020SynecdocheAA,
  title={Synecdoche, Aesthetics, and the Sublime Online: Or, What’s a Religious Internet Meme?},
  author={Scott Haden Church and Gavin Feller},
  journal={Journal of Media and Religion},
  year={2020},
  volume={19},
  pages={12 - 23}
}
ABSTRACT Hoping to court young people increasingly distancing themselves from institutional religious affiliation, religious organizations like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are creating and circulating aesthetic short-form videos (memes) rife with existential cinematic tropes aimed at invoking a sublime, affective viewing experience. Unlike the destabilizing cinema that inspired them, however, these religious memes do not have the luxury of equivocation. Institutional… 
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Religious Responses to Social Distancing Revealed through Memes during the COVID-19 Pandemic
TLDR
Examining memes centered on American Christianity reveals that memetic narratives in the early months of the pandemic indicate a positive framing of behaviors intended to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, and a negative framing of the attitudes of religious individuals and organizations who seem to privilege the cultural practices of their belief over the core values of the Christian faith.

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