The memes and the hidden polemic about emergency remote teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the hidden polemic conveyed by memes about the emergency remote teaching, experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. To this end, we analyzed three memes that circulated on social networks during the years 2020 and 2021, through the theoretical-methodological contribution of Dialogical Discourse Analysis, especially the notion of hidden polemic. The results indicate that the authors of the memes use the hidden polemic as a way of confronting aspects of the so-called capitalist, traditional pedagogical and technological discourses. Meanings and effects of meanings are produced by these dialogical relationships, which go towards a broader social critique. This criticism reveals both the weaknesses of emergency remote teaching and the social inequalities that hindered its viability.

Keywords:
Memes; Hidden polemic; Emergency remote teaching