Going “Viral”: What College Student Meme Posts Reveal About Their Sentiments Towards Higher Education Administration Fall 2020 Reopening Plans

Abstract:

As a result of mandated college and university evacuations in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, many college students turned to social media as a means of preserving social networks and to express certain concerns and desires associated with the evolving and uncertain future of university education. In this paper, I explore the research question of what do college students’ posts on social media reveal about their sentiments towards higher education (HE) administration, specifically during the transition to their first fully online semester/school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic? To answer this question, I performed a digital content analysis on posts from August 1st to September 30th, 2020 in a popular “college life”-oriented Facebook meme group, called “Zoom Memes for Self-Quaranteens.” I found that students felt a general sense of mistrust towards HE intuitions and were divided on their sentiments towards residential or remote learning conditions. Additionally, the findings reveal lively debates on how responsibility should be attributed to students and/or HE institutions when enforcing personal and public safety measures.
Last updated on 09/12/2022