Macri gato! Sociosemiotic approaches to the emergence of the political, the controversial and the humorous in Facebook

Abstract

In times when the media are an undisputed part of our daily life – leisure, work and even private life are, to a lesser or greater extent, mediatized-, political activity has not remained unchanged. As a result of the decline of traditional organized institutions and the widening of public space because of the appropriation of discourses and technologies by citizens, politics seem to have found a new field in which emplaced and updated: the social networks. In this context, the media coverage of the dispute over power in web environments, that enable instant feedback, is a propitious territory to discuss the modalities of intervention in the political debate. From a sociosemiotic approach, the article studies the senses constructed around the locution Macri gato in Resistiendo con aguante, a Facebook secret group which members line up behind the proposals of the kirchnerista political project. The questions that guide the analysis are:  What rhetoric, thematic and enunciative characteristics do the discourses assume? What senses are configured around the signifier Macri gato? How does the political word appear?