Psychological aspects of satirical communication in contemporary Ukrainian military memetics

Based on social media material

Abstract

The investigation aims to study the psychological and emotional aspects of satirical communication over social media using memes, specific effects, and coping strategies. The object of the research is memes by the art portal “Mystetstvo Peremohy”, the Ukrainian startup Reface, the application “Memomet”, “Ukrainian Memes”, REDDIT UKRAINE, “Black Humor. In Ukrainian. #BH”, “GONI Memes”, “First Private Memery”, “MEMoirs of War Time”. The study utilizes cultural-historical, comparative, interpretative, and synchronic methods.

The results of the research showed that memes reflected the worldview of Ukrainians in extreme conditions and fulfilled informational, emotional, and communicative functions, as well as mobilization and activation of society. The primary (basic) emotions felt by compatriots were anger, disgust, contempt for the enemy, and joy for the initial victories. The spread of memes with such emotions warned against social apathy and the emergence of fear, guilt, shame, anxiety, or wonder, while socializing Ukrainians through this genre contributed to the formation of secondary emotions: love (for relatives, homeland, land), optimism, trust, and prevented the emergence of shock states of anxiety-fear-perplexity, disappointment, sadness, and also cultivated interest-excitement, vigilance-expectation-interest. Alongside propagandistic and counter-propagandistic narratives, memes reflected and simultaneously programmed the behavior of Ukrainians, shaping the social behavior of the nation in times of threat, namely: basic coping strategies of “problem-solving” and “seeking social support”, which made the existence of the “avoidance” strategy impossible. It was established that in the aforementioned satirical communication strategies, predominantly two-component, creolized memes worked as coping resources for overcoming social stress, transforming it from high to low or moderate, demonstrating the cognitive development of Ukrainians, orientation in wartime situations, ability to take responsibility for their own actions and behavior, accumulation of individual emotional experience (empathy), and illustrated the value-motivational structure, which overall reflects the self-concept of Ukrainians, their mental characteristics, and character, which constitutes the novelty of the research.