Memes and education: opportunities, approaches and perspectives

Abstract This article presents the results of an international research of using Internet-memes in education process. The writing team set out to explore the reasons and ways of using Internet memes in education in different language spaces – English, Italian, Russian and Chinese. To achieve this goal, a number of tasks were formulated, including: 1. to study the linguistic factor of the use of memes in the educational process, 2. to classify the ways of using memes depending on the purpose, 3. to analyze the content of memes in the liberal, ideological, as well as in the field of exact sciences. The first part of the research made by Alexander Malakhov (PFUR) reveals the basic concepts associated with Internet memes. The second one written by Olga Matys (PFUR) is about using memes in a sphere of Russian liberal education in journalism. The third part of the research made by Ludovico De Serio (University of Genoa) presents an analysis using memes during studying math. The last but not the least part of this article made by Xie Dongqiang (PFUR) and reveals the aspects of an ideological studying using memes. This research was carried out using such scientific methods as analysis, comparison, description. In the course of the study, the authors used the work of such researchers as Susan Blackmore, G. Bini, M. Montagnani, Anna Zagoruyko, Maria Efremova, etc. Also there was used the content of sources such as VK publics “Memology: from antiquity to the present day” and “30 seconds before my expultion”, GeoGebra, www.padlet.com, etc.