Decoding the “Photo of the Century”: Memetic Communication and Meaning-making in Sports Communication

Abstract

The growing importance of visual media has transformed sports communication into an increasingly symbolic and participatory process. Among the various forms of contemporary digital communication, Internet memes have emerged as influential mechanisms through which sporting events, rivalries, and athlete identities are interpreted, reproduced, and disseminated. This qualitative case study examines the communicative transformation of a viral sports image into an Internet meme through Annie Leibovitz’s 2022 photograph depicting Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo playing chess on a Louis Vuitton suitcase before the FIFA World Cup. The study combines visual semiotic analysis with audience reception analysis through two focus group discussions involving 20 participants in Armenia, including individuals engaged in sports and those without professional involvement in sport. The analysis explores how visual and symbolic codes construct meanings of rivalry, prestige, strategic thinking, and sporting excellence, and how these meanings are interpreted by both groups. The findings indicate that the photograph is a multilayered communicative text in which sport-related and non-sport symbols interact. Participants associated the image with rivalry, mutual respect, strategy, prestige, and sporting excellence, with limited group differences. The study suggests that, through digital circulation and audience reinterpretation, the photograph acquired characteristics of memetic communication, while media virus provides an analytical framework for interpreting its circulation and recontextualization. The study contributes to sports communication research by integrating semiotic and audience reception analysis within a socio-cultural context. As a qualitative single-case study with a purposive sample of participants in Armenia, the findings should be interpreted within these contextual boundaries.