The History of European Dictatorships of 20th Century in the Internet Memes and the Reflection of the Current Political Situation (case of Slovakia and Czechia)

0558923 - EÚ 2023 IT eng A - Abstract
Šipöczová, Eva
The History of European Dictatorships of 20th Century in the Internet Memes and the Reflection of the Current Political Situation (case of Slovakia and Czechia).
[Annual Conference of the International Society for Humor Studies. Funny? Seriously? Seriously! Funny! - Calamity /32./. 29.06.2022-02.07.2022, Bertinoro]
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT(CZ) EF18_053/0017842
Institutional support: RVO:68378076
Keywords : collective memory * internet memes * second world war * cold war
OECD category: Antropology, ethnology
https://eventi.unibo.it/ishs-2022

The internet memes, as a main representative of online folklore, are viewed as collective and unofficial ideas of societies. They spread motives and topics globally and react to them locally – depending on socio-cultural context. They usually comment on contemporary events and situations and find inspiration in all over the knowledge and the culture. The history is not an exception, especially the past, which did not pass away in Vansina´s floating gap and it is still consolidated, re-/interpreted, reflected, or forgotten in the collective memory on official and unofficial levels and in individual memories.
The paper is focused on the using of the motives of the second world war and the communist regime in the internet memes to reflect and criticise contemporary political situations. This praxis is understood as part of informal sharing of historical narratives and unofficial collective memory. The data included in the research is from Slovak and Czech meme production between years 2020 and 2022. Based on qualitative content analysis of this data the paper shows how creators of memes re-/interpret history of the 20th century in new contexts and how they use symbolic values of the past leaders and events. Last part of the paper shows which strategies creators of memes use to comment on the present (e.g., a comparison, fake quotations, and comments)
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0332510