45 DOI: 10.24234/wisdom.v15i2.361 Olena POLISHCHUK, Iryna VITIUK, Nataliia KOVTUN, Volodymyr FED MEMES AS THE PHENOMENON OF MODERN DIGITAL CULTURE Abstract The article analyzes an Internet meme as the newest information product of the society and a result of its intellectual and artistic practices. The analysis of the role of the Internet memes in the modern digital culture is made. Such methods as semiotic and hermeneutic analysis of the Internet memes are used in the research work. The authors seek to explore the reasons for the popularity of memes in the processes of symbolic production and exchange in contemporary society and the modern digital culture. We consider that Internet meme created by using and modifying artistic images is a new phenomenon in human public life and new type of communication. As a hypothesis, a distinctive feature of the Internet meme is the sur- prise and laughter it causes in the “man of the Internet”. The main result of this article is the analysis the role of Internet memes in the newest information space and their specific features as a special information product of the modern digital culture. The authors draw attention to the popularity of Internet memes caused by an increase in information chaos in the modern symbolic production and exchange and a per- son‟s confusion when meeting a large number of information. Keywords: Internet meme, digital culture, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, social media, intellectual practices, ar- tistic practices, information product, communication. Introduction The newest information space is full of var- ious entertaining information projects and prod- ucts. For example, on TV these are talk shows and game shows, television films or series, etc. Popular cinema and cartoons, popular literature, video games and social media are also of great interest to contemporaries. In the last few years, they are increasingly joining a new information product which only strengthens the desire for games, entertainment, and communication on the Web in a person of the times of consumerism. The second generation of the Internet was created due to Web 2.0 technologies (Tim O‟Reilly and O‟Reilly Media). There are Web Mash-up, Ajax, Google Suggest, Google Maps, Gmail, etc. Thus, the Internet offered various media services, aggregators, sites such as Quin- tura, Youtube, Pligg, del.icio.us, Digg.com, Net- vibes, MySpace, Flickr, and other. There are Web objects, but individual consumers are sub- jects who want to communicate every day. This is a digital culture phenomenon in the newest so- ciety. Related services of Web 2.0 technologies created a new situation in the information realm WISDOM 2(15), 2020 45 Olena POLISHCHUK, Iryna VITIUK, Nataliia KOVTUN, Volodymyr FED