نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
As digital diplomacy becomes increasingly aggressive, the Zionist propaganda strategy, known as "Hasbara 2.0," is employed to manage global perception and label critics. In response, anti-Zionist movements on the social media utilize meme culture as a tactical tool for resistance. This article aims to explain the semiotic mechanisms of the anti-Hasbara movement using an interpretive-semiotic approach. The methodology is based on a synthesis of Roland Barthes' semiotics—focusing on denotation and connotation—and Limor Shifman’s critical memetic analysis across three levels: content, form, and stance. Through purposive sampling, thirteen prominent memes from Instagram within the 2025–2026 period were selected and analyzed across three categories. The findings reveal three primary strategies: First, the construction of an anti-Zionist identity as an absolute identity red line, making any emotional compromise with Zionism impossible; second, the satire of Mossad and the transformation of pervasive fear into collective humor and symbolic resistance, which disarms the psychological tools of Hasbara; and third, the normalization of aspirational violence, the infantilization of Israeli leaders, and the fabrication of an absolute "cyber-type" enemy. The main conclusion is that while memes critique the logic of hegemonic exclusion and othering, they simultaneously encounter an internal contradiction: on one hand, by normalizing aspirational violence and the dehumanization of the enemy, they inadvertently reproduce the very patterns of dominance they claim to oppose, perpetually oscillating on the thin line between radical critique and the reproduction of those same power structures.
کلیدواژهها English