Discussion
Over the past two decades, participatory digital culture, one where users not only consume but actively create, remix, and share content, has transformed everyday communication worldwide, and the Russian-speaking internet is no exception. Among its most dynamic forms of expression are internet memes: multimodal, template-based artefacts that are collectively authored and widely circulated across social media platforms. While often perceived as humorous or ephemeral, memes are in fact complex texts that are often intertextual, and culturally nuanced, whose interpretation depends on shared linguistic, historical, and social knowledge, as well as digital literacy.
This talk explores how these collectively produced and adaptable artefacts can serve as powerful tools for teaching both language and culture. It argues that memes, as vernacular digital productions, provide a distinctive entry point into contemporary Russian society, reflecting everyday experiences, linguistic play, and even coded dissent in contexts of increasing censorship. Their multimodal, participatory, and adaptive nature makes them particularly suited to pedagogy, enabling educators to find or create memes for virtually any topic, and learners to engage simultaneously with linguistic and visual modes, sociocultural meaning, and creative self-expression.
Drawing on a series of classroom-based experiments initially developed at the University of Lorraine (France) and later expanded at the University of Birmingham, the study explores how memes can be integrated into Modern Languages curricula. Memes were incorporated into modules on history, literature, and oral practice as prompts for lexical acquisition, cultural and critical reflection, and learner motivation. Activities included both meme analysis and creation, encouraging students to engage with authentic digital materials through humour, creativity, and critical thinking.
Findings indicate the pedagogical potential of memes: they activate vocabulary, stimulate interaction, and foster reflection on sociocultural contexts ranging from everyday life to historical events. Moreover, meme-based pedagogy contributes to the decentring of Russian Studies by expanding the focus beyond canonical cultural narratives and mainstream media, foregrounding the participatory digital practices of everyday internet users.
By situating meme-based pedagogy at the intersection of linguistics, cultural studies, and digital media, this talk demonstrates that the same qualities that make memes culturally and discursively complex—their intertextuality, humour, and adaptability—also make them uniquely effective for teaching across linguistic, cultural, and disciplinary contexts. While grounded in Russian Studies, this approach offers transferable insights across languages and disciplines, positioning memes as both mirrors and mediators of contemp
