Memes, youth and memory institutions

Through the collection of digital media and engagement with underrepresented groups, memory institutions aspire to preserve and interpret a range of contemporary perspectives on culture and identity. These institutions simultaneously seek to provide experiences that foster civic identities and cultural citizenship. This article explores the potential of collecting internet memes, a specific form of digital media, to further these institutional aims. Through an empirical study of a youth engagement program at a Norwegian folklore archive, we conclude that collecting and contextualizing image macros in collaboration with young people is an institutionally viable and inclusionary approach to documenting new expressions of culture and everyday life. The project further created a context in which young people could exercise competencies related to the development of a civic identity. These findings are relevant for cultural heritage institutions which aim to diversify the forms of digital media, knowledge practices and perspectives represented in their collections, and for cultural heritage professionals who aim to engage youth or marginalized communities. Extending recent research on internet memes as resources for meaning-making the study also underscores the value of participatory research methodologies which deliberately invite individuals’ interpretations of digital culture and analytical approaches that account for the richness of internet memes and image macros as semiotic resources for narrating identity.