Exploring Visual Culture of COVID-19 Memes: Russian and Chinese Perspectives

• Authors: Olga Smirnova , Alexandre P. Lobodanov , Galina V. Denissova , Anna A. Gladkova , Olga V. Sapunova , Anastasia L. Svitich

Abstracts

EN

The article explores COVID-19 related Internet memes and treats them as samples of creolized text in a study of the way ethnic and cultural peculiarities of memes are perceived by representatives of two radically different cultural paradigms: the Russians and Chinese. A survey is used as a method of the investigation. Russian and Chinese students, and visual arts experts evaluated Russian and Chinese COVID-19 memes according to several criteria concerning their content, verbal constituent element and visual characteristics. The study concluded that the social and culture-specific components mostly contribute to forming the opinion of the meme and its appreciation. Awareness of both the cultural background and the current social and nation-specific situation is required to decode a full amount of information contained in a meme. Equally important is the visual component in understanding the meme. Thus, the study contributes not only to studying event-specific memes but also broadens the scope of research on memes as a sample of visual culture.

Keywords

EN

visual language; ethnic and cultural peculiarities; Chinese; Russian; cultural paradigm; digital memes; COVID-19

• Publisher: Polskie Towarzystwo Komunikacji Społecznej
• Journal: Central European Journal of Communication
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 2(29)
• Pages: 259-286

Dates

published

2021

Contributors

author

Olga Smirnova

• Moscow State University

author

Alexandre P. Lobodanov

• Lomonosov Moscow State University

author

Galina V. Denissova

• Lomonosov Moscow State University

author

Anna A. Gladkova

• Lomonosov Moscow State University

author

Olga V. Sapunova

• Lomonosov Moscow State University

author

Anastasia L. Svitich

• Lomonosov Moscow State University

Identifiers

DOI

10.51480/1899-5101.14.2(29).4

Biblioteka Nauki

2042903