This article suggests Internet memes as one of these forms. In contexts where media and political actors cannot or will not address crucial issues important to ordinary people, alternative forms of communication emerge. Comparing and contrasting the topics and symbolic strategies that emerged in those countries, we showed that symbolic framing via memes is not a straightforward phenomenon, but a long-nuanced process in which different perceptions of the virus overlapped each other and changed through time. Temporally covering the first wave and the subsequent pandemic containment measures (February-October 2020), we distinguished a set of framing strategies that are suggested via memes by online audiences: alienation, avoidance, awareness-raising, critique, domestication, subversion, escapism and acknowledgement of emotions. Using a combination of digital ethnography and content analysis, we observed the meme-related participatory practices of quarantine memes on the most popular webpages in two countries: Russia (VKontakte) and Italy (Facebook). The creation of memes that emerged from this context frames the pandemic and the virus in a variety of ways, not only suggesting different points of view but also establishing norms, encouraging (dis)belief and satirically or creatively commenting on new COVID-related practices. Quarantine memes exist in the context of uncertainty, risks and fears about people’s health, restrictions of freedom, stress and changes in daily routines. Understanding the COVID-19 pandemic as a crisis, we aim to analyse quarantine memes as a participatory practice of ‘doing crisis’ – in particular, by framing its meanings and making sense of changes in everyday life. Although some of the possible causes could be linked to the lockdown boredom and consequent increase in screen-time among internet users we argue that the other cause has to be sought in the complex role memes had (and still have) as instruments of symbolic framing.Īs De Rycker (2018) put forth, a crisis is a human activity carried out knowingly and intentionally. New topics, styles and problems emerged from meme-sharing, resulting in a specific genre – quarantine memes. or its affiliates.During the COVID-19 pandemic, meme culture prospered. TWITTER, TWEET, RETWEET and the Twitter Bird logo are trademarks of Twitter Inc. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo and the GeForce Now logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and elsewhere. Epic, Epic Games, Epic Games Store, Unreal, Unreal Engine and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. Steam and the Steam logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation in the U.S. Microsoft, the Xbox Sphere mark and Xbox Series X|S are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. PlayStation, the PlayStation Family Mark, PS5 and the PS5 logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. NEXON trademark and logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of NXC Corporation. ARC RAIDERS and EMBARK trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Embark Studios AB.
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