INTERNET-MEMES IN CONTEMPORARY PROTEST COMMUNICATION IN GERMANY AND RUSSIA: GENERAL AND SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS

Abstract

The article presents results of a comparative analysis of Internet memes (sampling period 2019-2022) as a relevant format of political Internet communication in Germany and Russia. The urgency of the work is conditioned by the wide spread of Internet memes and their significant role as a modern form of protest practices, insufficient knowledge of this phenomenon, and the deficit of comprehensive comparative studies. Organizational structure, addressing, genetic, cultural and genre characteristics of memes, peculiarities of using precedent phenomena, replication and meaning generation, types of interaction between visual and verbal components, means of creating a comic effect are compared. For analyzing the author relies on the typology of Internet memes by N.A. Zinovieva. The work highlights universal and specific features of the studied phenomenon of protest communication in the two countries.