The popularity of memes has increased in this modern era as they can be highly accessible on the internet. They are significant as communication tools on social media such as tools for humour and marketing. Studies commonly explored memes in the field of marketing and business, politics, and even their effects on social media users. However, studies which focus on memes from a multimodal discourse perspective, particularly in the Malaysian context in relation to the Siakap Langkawi issue, seem to be fairly scarce. Hence, through the lens of the three-dimensional model by Fairclough and the three dimensions of memes by Shifman, a multimodal study on memes with the issue on Siakap Langkawi as the theme is conducted. Specifically, this study examines the meanings and messages of the memes. Findings show that the memes in this study constitute a form of mockery, protest, and resistance towards the Siakap Langkawi issue as Malaysians stand for the rights of consumers. Additionally, pantun and famous memes were used and recreated; the salience of word font and images contribute greatly to the intended meaning and messages of these memes. This study is timely as it provides a detailed analysis of the structures of memes and categorises them into themes to show common trends. Such a move ultimately contributes to our understanding of the ways Malaysian social media users express their thoughts, messages, and dissent on the Siakap Langkawi issue via memes.

Keywords: humour; marketing; memes; multimodal; Siakap Langkawi

Adámek, D. (2015). A discourse analysis of memes in advertising [Bachelor thesis, Tomas Bata University]. Repository of Tomas Bata University publications. http://digilib.k.utb.cz/bitstream/handle/10563/

/ad%C3%A1mek_2016_dp.pdf?sequence=-1

Afifah, N., & Sari, R. P. (2019, July 20-22). Gesture as Language in Drakeposting Internet Meme (A Study of Semiotics) [Proceedings]. The 3rd Indonesian International Conference on Linguistics, Language Teaching, Literature and Culture, Universitas Pamulang, Indonesia.

Ang, M. V. (2021, November 12). "I'll Buy You That Langkawi Siakap" – LCW pens sweetest anniversary post to his wife. Says. https://says.com/my/fun/langkawi-siakap-lcw-pens-sweetest-wedding-anniversary-post

Ariani, I., & Rachmadani, F. (2020). Internet memes with feminist content as a communication media of philosophical meaning through building a deep understanding on women’s positions. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 36(2), 106-123.

Aslan, E. (2021). Days of our ‘quarantined’ lives: Multimodal humour in COVID-19 internet memes. Internet Pragmatics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ip.00075.asl

Baym, N. K. (1993). Interpreting soap operas and creating community: Inside a computer-mediated fan culture. Journal of Folklore Research, 30(2/3), 143–176.

Bernaim, M. (2018). From symbolic values to symbolic innovation: Internet-memes and innovation. Research Policy, 47(5), 901–910.

Bernardo, J. (2021, September 15). Korean series ‘Squid Game’ gives deadly twist to children’s games. ABS-CBN. https://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/09/15/21/kiddie-games-turn-deadly-in-korean-series-squid-game

Bernama (2021, November 21). Langkawi siakap case to be referred to DPP. New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2021/11/747367/langkawi-siakap-case-be-referred-dpp

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101.

Butters, R. R. (2007). A linguistic look at trademark dilution. Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. LJ, 24(3), 507-519.

Chuah, K. M., Kahar, Y. M., & Ch’ng, L. C. (2020). We “Meme” business: Exploring Malaysian youths’ interpretation of internet memes in social media marketing. International Journal of Business and Society, 21(2), 931-944.

Daillie, F. (1988). Alam pantun Melayu: Studies on the Malay pantun. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Danet, B., Ruedenberg-Wright, L., & Rosenbaum-Tamari, Y. (1997). Hmmm… where's that smoke coming from? Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2(4), JCMC246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.

-6101.1997.tb00195.x

Dynel, M. (2021). COVID-19 memes going viral: On the multiple multimodal voices behind face masks. Discourse & Society, 32(2), 175-195.

El Refaie, E. (2009). What makes us laugh? Verbo-visual humour in newspaper cartoons. In E. Ventola & A. J. M. Guijarro (Eds.), The world told and the world shown (pp. 75-89). Palgrave Macmillan.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Longman.

Ford, C. (2019). The wonderful world of memes: Exploring the satirical commentary of memes in the digital age. Lucerna, 13, 166–181.

Gal, N., Shifman, L., & Kampf, Z. (2016). “It gets better”: Internet memes and the construction of collective identity. New Media & Society, 18(8), 1698-1714.

Gal, S. (2013). Tastes of talk: Qualia and the moral flavour of signs. Anthropological Theory, 13(1–2), 31–48

Hardaker, C., & McGlashan, M. (2016). Real men don't hate women: Twitter rape threats and group identity. Journal of Pragmatics, 91, 80-93.

Hartshorne, C. & Weiss, C. (Eds.) (1958). The collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vol. 8). Harvard University Press.

Huntington, H. E. (2017). The affect and effect of internet memes: Assessing perceptions and influence of online user-generated political discourse as media [Doctoral dissertation, Colorado State University]. Colorado State University ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/handle/10217/183936/Huntington_colostate_0053A_14303.pdf?sequence=1

Jewitt, C., & Oyama, R. (2001). Visual meaning: A social semiotic approach. In T. van Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (Eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis (pp. 134–156). Sage.

Knobel, M. & Lankshear, C. (2007). Online memes, affinities, and cultural production. In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.), A new literacies sampler (pp. 199–228). Peter Lang Publishing.

Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual images. Routledge.

Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual images (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Laineste, L., & Voolaid, P. (2016). Laughing across borders: Intertextuality of internet memes. The European Journal of Humour Research, 4(4), 26-49.

Lee, S. Y. (2020). A qualitative study on the effects of internet memes on university students' perception of news [Doctoral dissertation, UTAR]. UTAR Institutional Repository. http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4031/

Lin, C., Huang, Y. & Hsu, J. Y. (2014, November 2-4). Crowdsourced explanations for humorous internet memes based on linguistic theories. [Proceedings]. The Second AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP 2014), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of

America.

Miltner, K. M. (2018). Internet memes. In Burgess, J., Marwick, A. & Poell, T. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media (pp. 412-428). Sage Publications.

Mitchell, A. (2019, November 8). What is the cat meme, and why is that woman yelling? An explanation of the hilarious viral moment. Oprah daily. https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/a29739536/cat-meme-taylor-armstrong-explained/

Ndlovu, M. (2021). Humour in the time of COVID-19 pandemic: A critical analysis of the subversive meanings of WhatsApp memes in Zimbabwe. In S. Mpofu (Ed.), Digital humour in the Covid-19 pandemic (pp. 259-277). Springer.

Nita, F. R., Setiawan, S., & Lestari, L. A. (2021). Meaning-making of internet memes to create humorous sense: functions as speech acts. Language Literacy: Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Teaching, 5(2), 465-479.

Nur Amalina Azman (2021, November 8). Pelanggan nafi dimaklum saiz, berat ikan siakap. Utusan Malaysia. https://www.utusan.com.my/nasional/2021/11/pelanggan-nafi-dimaklum-saiz-berat-ikan-siakap/

Sadath, S. M., & Shanmugasundaram, S. (2019). Millennial consumer’s perception towards memes marketing. studies, 7(1), 405-412.

Salim Aziz (2021, November 5). Kenapa ikan siakap di Langkawi dijual pada harga RM1,196 seekor? Ini penjelasan pemilik restoran. Astro Awani. https://www.astroawani.com/berita-malaysia/kenapa-ikan-siakap-di-langkawi-dijual-pada-harga-rm1196-seekor-ini-penjelasan-pemilik-

restoran-329250

Segev, E., Nissenbaum, A., Stolero, N., & Shifman, L. (2015). Families and networks of internet memes: The relationship between cohesiveness, uniqueness, and quiddity concreteness. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(4), 417-433.

Shifman, L. (2013). Memes in a digital world: Reconciling with a conceptual troublemaker. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 18(3), 362–377.

Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in digital culture. MIT Press.

Siti Farhanah, J. M. & Malarvizhi, S. (2019). Text analysis on memes related to working environment. In K. Muniisvaran, P. Thanalachime, S. Franklin Thambi Jose, & S. Malarvizhi (Eds.), Emerging trends in multi languages & linguistics (pp. 80-96). Tamil Linguistics Association.

Soh, W. Y. (2020). Digital protest in Singapore: The pragmatics of political Internet memes. Media, Culture & Society, 42(7-8), 1115-1132.

Southern, L. (2018, August 03). Better ROI than influencers: Meme accounts attract growing interest on Instagram. Digiday UK. https://digiday.com/uk/better-roi-influencers-meme-accounts-attract-growing-interest-instagram/

Townsend, L., & Wallace, C. (2016). Social media research: A guide to ethics. https://www.bolton.ac.uk/assets/Uploads/Social-media-ethics-study-Aberdeen-2018.pdf

Vasquez, C. (2019). Language, creativity and humour online. Routledge.