From the European institutions with lulz: an explorative performance analysis of EU Internet memes

This exploratory study examines the outcomes of the European Commission and Parliament's strategy to integrate Internet memes into their institutional communication, grounded in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that integrates early memetics, political communication studies, and European Union research. Drawing upon Richard Dawkins' concept of memes as units of cultural transmission akin to biological replicators, the research explores the mechanisms through which memes propagate, mutate, and compete within a "meme pool”, embedding their characteristics within Henry Jenkins’ convergence culture and spreadable media theory. Two literature reviews delve deeper into Internet memes’ employments in political settings, ranging from propaganda to dissent, news dissemination and civic activism, and the issues plaguing EU institutional communication — mainly due to a lack of legitimacy from the citizens —, with a brief overview of the steps already taken to address them, with the Plan D for Democracy, European Parliament resolutions, the “Communicating Europe in Partnership” joint declaration and the White Paper on Communication. The research combines qualitative analysis of viral content through a two-way focus group, conducted by interviewing a group of regular social media users and a group of active meme-makers, and quantitative methods on user-generated content engagement and sentiment polarization in the comments, to observe and evaluate the performance of 68 memes posted by the European Commission and the European Parliament from 2019 to 2024.