Internet meme as a means of cultural reproduction

The article describes the methodological and substantive aspects of Internet meme while studying the social and cultural contexts expressed by offline and online spaces. Internet memes are viewed as multimodal phenomena, embracing both verbal and nonverbal means of information transmission and retransmission. The research methods applied to Internet memes could be borrowed from hermeneutics, semiotics, and discourse analysis. On the one hand, by definition, memes are able to self-produce and emphasize the most relevant current events of the present-day reality in great detail. On the other hand, memes are the creation of popular culture that reflects social and cultural trends of entertainment, non-criticism, and consumer-oriented nature. Special emphasis should be given to quasi-political component in meme structure which includes ideologization and politicization of the discourse, while any other subjects are being brought up. The main functions of the meme are integration and disintegration of social groups, which is based on stereotyping and stigmatizing the various cultural phenomena and people and entities related to them.