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Memes and politics refers to meme as a graphical communication medium has been largely implemented for political campaign, propaganda, and activism. The historical uses of meme for political purposes can be traced back to World War I where propaganda posters and advertisements were first recognized as a significant tool to deliver values and beliefs of culture, politics, and society to the masses in a print format. Propaganda images during the war time were a combination of a striking image with a short yet sharp slogan in a large and bold font. Today, with the rise of information and communications technology (ICT),memes have gone from print to digital. The use of memes for political purposes are mostly based on Web 2.0 social media applications with user-generated content (UGC), which largely embraces the concept of “participatory culture”.

Definition of Meme
Main article: Meme

Originally, Richard Dawkins first introduced meme in his book The Selfish Gene (1976). Dawkins defines memes from a biological perspective as he asserts memes like genes, are cultural units that transmit, imitate, and replicate quickly in the society. During the process, there is a competition and selection that is happening among different memes, and only the final winners get stored and circulated from mind to mind.

In Dawkins’ latter book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he further expands meme as information unit in people’s mind that has influences on certain events so that the information can be duplicated and spread in other people’s minds within a very short time. As such, the selection among successful memes is based on how much impact it creates on an event. Richard Brodie, the author of Virus of the Mind, clarifies this definition with the yawning example. Brodie says although yawning is contagious, it is a behaviour instead of a meme because it does not have any influences on events.

Internet Meme
Main article: Internet meme

Political Memes
Political memes are the combination of humor and serious messages that expresses the masses’ voice of their worldview in a normative debate.

Functions of Political Memes
Limor Shiftman lists the three functions of political memes : ''
 * 1) Memes as forms of persuasion or political advocacy
 * 2) Memes as grassroots action
 * 3) ''Memes as modes of expression and public discussion

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement
Main article: Occupy Wall Street

In September 17, 2011, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest movement took place in Liberty Plaza Park in financial district of New York City that generated both national and global awareness on financial inequality issues in America. The OWS movement was a participatory democratic practice that insists protesters in this movement are all leaders, where everyone’s issue is equally important. Memes that were circulated on digital platforms had critical impact during this event as a reflection on the participatory culture.