Webinar on Meme Warfare

Please join me TODAY on Monday, May 4th, 2026 at noon Eastern Time for the free webinar, “Memes, Warfare, and Propaganda” for the Media Education Lab.

Here is the direct link to register on Zoom.

For a preview, check out the 5.5 minute video I created with NotebookLM for our webinar, “The Cognitive Hijack: Memetic Warfare and the Aesthetics of Cruelty”

Here’s a link to the slideshow for the webinar.

Description:

As memes migrate from fringe imageboards into the official communication channels of governments and militaries, the grammar of irony, gaming culture, and pop aesthetics is being deployed to normalize dehumanization, justify violence, and wage information warfare. From Iran's Lego propaganda campaigns targeting Western audiences, to White House Studio Ghibli-style cartoons mocking deportation arrests, to video game references etched onto bullet casings by a would-be assassin — the line between joke and weapon has never been harder to locate, or more urgent to teach. What makes memetic warfare so difficult to counter is that its power lies precisely in its ambiguity. The irony-poisoned aesthetic of meme culture gives bad actors plausible deniability — it's just a joke, it's just a meme — while the dehumanizing message lands exactly as intended. And when governments adopt the same tactics, the aesthetics of cruelty get laundered through pop culture until they feel normal. Join the MediaEd Club as we examine how memes have become weapons of power, propaganda, and political manipulation. Through real case studies drawn from recent conflicts and domestic politics, critical frameworks for understanding memetic warfare, and practical classroom strategies, we'll explore what this moment demands of media-literate citizens — and how educators can help learners recognize, contextualize, and resist meme-based manipulation.

#MediaLiteracy #MediaLit #LikeWar #Meme #MemeWar