From viral to the concrete

a discursive analysis of memes about the ban on cell phones in brazilian schools

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between discourse, resistance, and educational policies by analyzing discursive interaction processes materialized in memes about the ban on cell phones in Brazilian schools (Law no. 15.100/2025). Grounded in the Dialogic Theory of Language of the Bakhtin Circle, particularly in the concepts of concrete utterance, dialogism, and speech genres, the study examines how memes articulate strategies of resistance, opposing social voices (students, school institutions), and representations of technology and education. It is a qualitative study focused on viral memes published on Instagram between April and May 2025, in response to the sanctioning of the aforementioned law. The corpus comprises two memes: one satirizes students performing absurd maneuvers in the classroom, and the other hyperbolizes the difficulty of communication without cell phones. Overall, the results indicate that these concrete utterances function as humorous discourses that carnivalize institutional discourse and amplify criticism through virality. The analysis reinforces the Bakhtinian perspective that language constitutes a field of dialogic struggle in which memes emerge a digital discursive genres that not only respond to norms but also resignify them, becoming arenas for negotiating meanings around education, control, and youth autonomy in the digital age.