The Role of Meme and Cyberspace On Collective Social Actions With Emphasis On Emotional Contagion

The purpose of this study is to investigate how emotional contagion, through Meme and cyberspace, having a triggering role, which can lead to the formation of collective behaviors such as demanding rights and political sociability and make larger scale social behavior. The research method is documentary and the research tool is note- taking. An important reason for addressing emotional contagion is to explain their motivating role, which spreads rapidly through memes and cyberspace. Emotions that can accelerate the movement against authoritarian, and influence the transnational dissemination of emotions by creating an intersection of emotions at the individual and collective levels in the public sphere, as happened in Tunisia and Egypt. By stimulating emotions, information rapidly spread by netizen in the form of memes as the symbolic language of social media and the emotional contagion spill over through digital media. Meme is a tool for exchanging information on Facebook and Twitter. Meme is popular expressed statement that profoundly facilitated by social media. Cyberspace such as Twitter and Facebook created a space of freedom for unity, protests, real demands for right and hatred of the government. It was also a good place to raise awareness to attend rallies and along with arousing the feeling of disgust and awakening of the people, it sparked revolutionary sentiment in Tunisia and Egypt. Meme and cyberspace during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and other social media movements somehow strengthen the collective emotion of citizens.

Keywords:

Memes , Emotional Contagion , Social Networks , Social media