An Army of Invaders vs an Army of Defenders. Vernacular Presentations of Ukraine’s and Russia’s Armed Forces in Polish Internet Memes

Abstract

The 2022 Russian aggression against Ukraine resonates on many levels and in various respects, absorbing mostly the attention of the residents of the neighbouring countries, including Poles. The main purpose of the article was to present the images of Russia and Ukraine drawn in the Polish Internet by means of Internet picture memes. Their reconstruction made it possible to answer the question of how Internet users in Poland perceive both sides of the conflict. The paper presents the results of a non-reactive study realized by means of qualitative content analysis. The main research problem was the question of how the military potentials of Ukraine and Russia are presented. An ex-post analysis of 287 sites allowed to distinguish several areas. These referred to: the military potentials of Russia and Ukraine, the presidents of the states as the heads of the armed forces, commanders, troops and soldiers, the ways in which combat is conducted, and civilian support for military engagement. Analysis of the acquired objects shows bipolar presentations of the two countries in the cybermemes.