The incredible story of how Jair Bolsonaro prevented a war: memetics and dialectical image

memetics and dialectical image

Authors

  • Erick Felinto UERJ | Diretor Editorial Adjunto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/

Keywords:

war, memes, imaginary, dialectical image

Abstract

In February 2022, at the height of tensions between Russia and Ukraine, former president Jair Bolsonaro traveled to Moscow to hold official meetings. Immediately, his supporters began to speculate about a secret motivation for the trip: to avoid the conflict between the two nations. In the days that followed, a flood of memes on different platforms characterized Bolsonaro as a promoter of world peace, while others mocked such claims. The aim of this paper is to analyze this "memetic war" as representative of the power that memes have been exerting on the Brazilian (and global) political scene. Taking as theoretical tools the notion of “dialectical image” and the structural relations that memes entertain with religious experience, I propose that public discourse has been strongly conditioned by a "memetic logic" that spreads virally through the social fabric in the current conditions of cyberculture.

Author Biography

  • Erick Felinto, UERJ | Diretor Editorial Adjunto
    Possui graduação em Comunicação Social pela Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (1990), Mestrado em Comunicação pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (1993), Especialização (ABD) pela Universidade da California, Los Angeles em Línguas e Literaturas Românicas (1997) e doutorado em Letras pela Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (1998), além de ter realizado estágio de Pós-Doutoramento Sênior (CAPES) na Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK) sobre Teorias da Mídia alemães (2010-2011). Atualmente é pesquisador do CNPq e Professor Titular da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, onde leciona no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação Social. Também é professor colaborador do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos de Literatura da UFF. Foi Presidente da Associação Nacional de Programas de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação (COMPÓS) no biênio 2007-2009, é membro fundador da Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores em Cibercultura (ABCIBER), na qual exerceu ainda o cargo de Diretor Científico (de 2009 a 2014) e foi membro do Conselho Deliberativo da Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema (SOCINE) entre 2005 e 2009 e, novamente, de 2014 a 2016 e 2017 a 2019.

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Published

2026-03-10

Issue

Vol. 49 (2026): REVISTA INTERCOM

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Erick Felinto

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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How to Cite

The incredible story of how Jair Bolsonaro prevented a war: memetics and dialectical image: memetics and dialectical image. Intercom - Brazilian Journal of Communication Sciences, São Paulo, v. 49, p. e2026113, 2026. DOI: 10.1590/. Disponível em: https://revistas.intercom.org.br/index.php/revistaintercom/article/view/4969. Acesso em: 21 jul. 2026.