The Meme Radar: Locating Liberalism in Illiberal Hungary

Annastiina Kallius, Rik Adriaans

Forskningsoutput: TidskriftsbidragArtikelVetenskapligPeer review

Sammanfattning

This article examines the social media practices through which young Hungarians deliberate the workings of truth and the meanings of liberalism under Viktor Orba'n's authoritarian regime. Noting similarities between ubiquitous government propaganda billboards and the aesthetics of parodic social media content, these youth increasingly perceive everyday situations as internet memes. Navigating generational differences, class antagonisms, and rural-urban divisions, for them, seeing the world as a meme anchors the youth's sense of truth and untruth and liberal identity in a polarized political field. We trace the everyday practices of montage through which conspirato-rial billboard campaigns and the parodic forms of internet memes become linked, and observe how the visual, visceral, and networked sensibilities of meme culture help neu-tralize illiberal propaganda by turning it into a source of the self.
Originalspråkengelska
TidskriftCultural Anthropology
Volym37
Nummer4
Sidor (från-till)679-706
Antal sidor28
ISSN0886-7356
DOI
StatusPublicerad - nov. 2022
MoE-publikationstypA1 Tidskriftsartikel-refererad

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  • 5143 Social- och kulturantropologi

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