Creating the Sample

This week I am taking my project a step further in what and how I am assessing these memes related to the Kavanaugh hearings. Here I am going to list three criteria I will be using throughout this project.

Cohesion, Consistency, Clarity

The main criteria for this project are that the memes have to be a picture of Kavanaugh from the hearing. This event was historical, and it is going to have a lot of implications on the way we handle a lot of issues. This hearing was more than just a woman coming forward after years about a man, no this case is more. This hearing is going to determine how we treat sexual assault survivors, how we handle allegations of assault, and how privilege exists and effects everyone. As I said, this is a moment in our history, hence why I am selecting this story to analyze.

The second criteria for the memes selected are regarding the fact that the text of the memes is either explicitly or implicitly referencing race or gender. Some of these memes that are attacking either side of the aisle are using subtle phrases to get their point across, or others are aggressive in their tactics because they believe that gets the message across. Understanding which messages work better, seeing the tactics each side utilizes has importance as well. Excluding one will fail in showing how powerful, or perhaps how weak, the arguments are being made by both sides.

The final criteria that I am utilizing in this collection of memes are that all memes must be an image and text on it. By this I mean, that memes that have tweets on the picture will not be included. Although memes take on many shapes and forms, I want memes that are “traditional” in that sense, just a picture of Kavanaugh and text on that image. This is to help narrow down the sample into more concise examples.

Examples

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This first example fits the criteria previously mentioned. This has a picture of Kavanaugh from the hearing, deals with race, and is in what I have deemed a meme format.

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This second example fits the criteria by focusing on gender. This picture is different than the others, featuring a cartoon of Kavanaugh and Ford; however, this is from the hearing, so it still works with the project.

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The final example of the week has an image of Kavanaugh from the trial, also focuses on gender, but this time is not a comparison of another person. In this case, we are seeing how this argument touches on the inequality between the genders when reporting an assault.