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Doctoral memes as public pedagogy? Or, heaven knows I'm miserable now.

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Title: Doctoral memes as public pedagogy? Or, heaven knows I'm miserable now.
Authors: Thomson, Pat1 (AUTHOR) Patricia.Thomson@nottingham.ac.uk
Source: Studies in Continuing Education. Jul2026, Vol. 48 Issue 2, p109-127. 19p.
Subject Terms: *Doctoral programs, *Social media, *Group identity, *Nonformal education, Memes, Well-being, Identity (Psychology), Wit & humor
Abstract: Social media afford the proliferation of doctoral memes across numerous, generally anonymous, accounts spread over multiple platforms – the timeline where the PhD candidate starts off gleaming with health and beaming in delight and ends up an overweight, dishevelled wreck. Or the exhausted cat who has managed to write one line of their thesis in an entire day. But should these memes be a cause for concern? After all, it's just humour, albeit somewhat dark. My exploratory thematic analysis of a corpus of 292 doctoral memes and a theorisation of memes as public pedagogy, point to strong resonances between the memes and research on the doctoral experience. This enhances their credibility as a source of information. Based on the analysis, I suggest we might seriously examine doctoral meme-based learning, focusing on the potential of their gallows humour to support identity formation, community building, coping and wellbeing. Memes may be small but could potentially do useful work for both doctoral researchers and their supervisors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Studies in Continuing Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: Doctoral memes as public pedagogy? Or, heaven knows I'm miserable now.
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Thomson%2C+Pat%22">Thomson, Pat</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo> (AUTHOR)<i> Patricia.Thomson@nottingham.ac.uk</i>
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  Data: *<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Doctoral+programs%22">Doctoral programs</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+media%22">Social media</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Group+identity%22">Group identity</searchLink><br />*<searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Nonformal+education%22">Nonformal education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Memes%22">Memes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Well-being%22">Well-being</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Identity+%28Psychology%29%22">Identity (Psychology)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Wit+%26+humor%22">Wit & humor</searchLink>
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  Data: Social media afford the proliferation of doctoral memes across numerous, generally anonymous, accounts spread over multiple platforms – the timeline where the PhD candidate starts off gleaming with health and beaming in delight and ends up an overweight, dishevelled wreck. Or the exhausted cat who has managed to write one line of their thesis in an entire day. But should these memes be a cause for concern? After all, it's just humour, albeit somewhat dark. My exploratory thematic analysis of a corpus of 292 doctoral memes and a theorisation of memes as public pedagogy, point to strong resonances between the memes and research on the doctoral experience. This enhances their credibility as a source of information. Based on the analysis, I suggest we might seriously examine doctoral meme-based learning, focusing on the potential of their gallows humour to support identity formation, community building, coping and wellbeing. Memes may be small but could potentially do useful work for both doctoral researchers and their supervisors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
– Name: AbstractSuppliedCopyright
  Label:
  Group: Ab
  Data: <i>Copyright of Studies in Continuing Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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        Value: 10.1080/0158037X.2024.2417095
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        Text: English
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      – SubjectFull: Doctoral programs
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Social media
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      – SubjectFull: Group identity
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      – SubjectFull: Memes
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      – SubjectFull: Well-being
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              Text: Jul2026
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