Us vs. Them: Internet Memes and Construction of (Counter)Protest Identities in Ukraine and Venezuela

Abstract

The paper discusses how internet memes are used for identity-building by pro- and anti-regime protesters in Ukraine and Venezuela. Using two cases of recent protest campaigns - Euromaindan protests (2013-2014) and anti-Maduro protests (2018-2019) - it applies quantitative content analysis and intertextual discourse analysis to examine how different political communities use memes' intertextuality and virality for constructing different types of identities (e.g., gender, political, and technomoral ones). The paper's findings indicate similarities between different protest and counter-protest communities in terms of constructing political and gender identities, but highlights substantial differences between the two cases in terms of technomoral values associated with (counter)protest communities via the memes.