Memetic protest and the dramatic diffusion of Alan Kurdi

Abstract

In September 2015, the photographs of a dead boy, Alan Kurdi, washed up on a beach near the Turkish city of Bodrum, inspired countless reactions of indignation and protest. To understand the protest dynamic that emerged around these photographs, this article discusses three sets of explanatory observations: (a) that the Kurdi photographs had important aesthetic and inter-iconic qualities , (b) that the central ‘Kurdi on the beach’ photographs were juxtaposed with a range of ‘Kurdi alive’ photographs brought into the public sphere by intimate injustice interpreters and commentators (i.e. Kurdi’s aunt and father), and (c) that they displayed an interpretive openness that allowed for ideological and geographical diversity in political meaning work. In seeking to offer an explanation of the dramatic diffusion of Kurdi, the article also illuminates some new powerful trends in activism around injustice photographs. While the global and protest-driven diffusion of injustice photographs is not historically novel, the new media ecology of Web 2.0 is profoundly transforming the way photographs are politicized. This transformation involves unprecedented opportunities for individualized, creative, and memetic protest .