When AI Meets Political Satire: Meme Culture, Narrative Contestation and Public Perception in Nigeria's Digital Public Sphere

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed contemporary political communication by expanding the production and circulation of synthetic visual contents, memes, and digitally mediated narratives. While existing scholarship has largely focused on the implications of AI for misinformation, manipulation, and electoral politics, less attention has been devoted to its role in political satire, citizen participation, and narrative contestation, particularly within African digital publics. This study examined the controversy that followed remarks by Nigeria's First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, in June 2026 regarding low-capital enterprises such as akara frying, roasted corn vending, and kuli-kuli production as pathways to economic empowerment. The subsequent circulation of AI-generated Iya Alakara imagery, memes, parody videos, and satirical commentaries transformed the remarks into a significant site of political debate within Nigeria's digital public sphere. Drawing on Narrative Paradigm Theory, the study employed a qualitative digital ethnographic approach that combined netnography, qualitative content analysis, and visual meme analysis. Data were derived from publicly accessible discussions on X, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, online news reports, memes, and AI-generated visual contents circulated between June and July 2026. Findings indicated that digital audiences reinterpreted the official entrepreneurship narrative through the lens of lived economic realities, reframing it as a broader discourse on inflation, unemployment, governance, political accountability, and social inequality. The study further demonstrated that AI-generated political imagery functions as a contested symbolic resource rather than a straightforward instrument of persuasion. By appropriating, remixing, and satirizing official narratives, citizens actively participated in the production of alternative political meanings. The paper further argued that the convergence of generative AI, meme culture, and participatory digital media is reshaping political communication in Nigeria by decentralizing narrative authority and expanding opportunities for citizen-led counter-discourse within networked publics.