This thesis contributes a new interdisciplinary framework to folklore studies for analysing how folk traditions manifest and evolve within contemporary online communities, while also demonstrating the value of comics-based research as a methodological tool for analysing folkloric phenomena. Contemporary online communities have become sites of folkloric expression, where users create, adapt, and circulate narratives through memes, viral characters, and participatory online rituals. These practices often echo longstanding folkloric traditions, drawing on familiar character archetypes and narrative structures while unfolding within the continually evolving environment of online networks. Whilst the digitisation and network architectures of folk narratives have been explored in academic writings since the inception of digital media communications, less attention has been paid to the sociocultural dynamics through which online communities adopt, reinterpret, and transform traditional folkloric motifs and practices. This thesis asks: In what ways do the processes of narrative dissemination and community rituals that define traditional folklore shape and adapt to the sociocultural dynamics of contemporary digital platforms? To address this question, the research analyses how folkloric practices manifest and evolve within online communities, examining examples such as viral meme characters and online narratives that draw upon traditional folkloric archetypes. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from folklore studies, digital humanism, and media anthropology, the thesis examines and reconciles contradictions within these scholarly perspectives, to crystallise an integrated understanding of human communication and creative expression within digital culture. This reveals contemporary online communities as a vibrant system of collaborative, multimodal engagement in which folkloric traditions adapt to and enhance the affordances of contemporary digital platforms. At the core of this study is the development of the Seismic Cultural Event (SCE) model, a bespoke analytical framework that provides a means of identifying and tracking folkloric practices as they unfold across media, during significant cultural events. A key argument concerns how media channels shape and amplify folkloric traditions by accelerating the rate of narrative diffusion, destabilising traditional media hierarchies, and expanding collaborative access to media editing and sharing devices. Folkloric artefacts, in turn, inform the development and use of these media channels as it adapts narratives, characters, and symbolic frameworks to exploit the affordances of these evolving media technologies. Case studies of notable cultural events and associated patterns of digital folklore generation are used to demonstrate how particular folk narratives and character traditions underpin internet culture while being transformed and extended through the affordances of networked media. Importantly, the research has been designed using an interdisciplinary, multimodal approach, in the form of an “illustrated thesis” format, which utilises comics to both present and guide academic analysis. This format has four key benefits: it intuitively represents the layering of narratives and contexts present in internet folklore; it extends beyond the expressive limits of text through diagrammatic visual summaries; it fosters a reflexive approach for the researcher that encourages a generative process of research and analysis; and it invites the reader to engage with the material interpretively, more so than traditional academic prose in which meaning is more rigidly prescribed. In doing so, the thesis contributes to folklore studies, digital humanities, and media anthropology by providing a new conceptual framework for analysing the sociocultural impact of folklore in networked environments, while also demonstrating the methodological potential of comics-based research in the study of contemporary digital culture.