Targets in Czech Digital Covid-related Humour

The blogpost deals with an analysis of targets in Czech Covid-related digital humour. The material for the study are humorous memes, collected from Czech social media users from December 2019 till February 2021 within a university project, comprising about 1000 samples. The post maps what targets appear in the collected humorous memes, what role in the pandemic situation they are ascribed and what general discourse strategies the construction of targets reflects. The analysis reveals the capacity of humour to create in-group/out-group oppositions and the dominant tendencies of portraying the targets as the ones to blame, as threats, rivals and sheeples.