The Department of Criminology of the ELTE Faculty of Law is organising an English-language professional symposium, featuring a keynote lecture by Dr Tine Munk, criminologist, lecturer and researcher at Nottingham Trent University (United Kingdom), and an internationally recognised scholar of memetic warfare and online disinformation.
Dr Munk studied law at Aarhus University and the University of Manchester and is the author of several academic books, including New Forms of Civic Resistance and Activism (2026), Victimisation in the Digital Age (2025), and Memetic War: Online Resistance in Ukraine (2024). The latter presents the findings of her research project The Complex Web in Memetic Warfare.
Organised jointly by the Department of Criminology of the ELTE Faculty of Law and the Hungarian Society of Criminology, the English-language symposium will focus on humour-based memetic wartime propaganda, contemporary online disinformation, and youth cultures emerging in the digital sphere. In her keynote lecture, Political Memes: From Youth Margins to the Mainstream, Dr Tine Munk will explore how political memes have evolved from anonymous online subcultures into an established feature of everyday political communication. Her presentation will examine early youth meme cultures and their subsequent appropriation by far-right groups. Drawing also on the case of Ukraine’s defensive memetic warfare, she will illustrate how this form of communication has evolved to the point where governments and public institutions increasingly employ it as a political communication tool.
Examples from Ukraine, the United States, Greenland and Iran demonstrate how humour, visual communication and active public participation in the online sphere can shape political narratives and mobilisation, as well as the relationship between online communication and offline events. The keynote lecture will be followed by brief contributions and a moderated discussion. The session will provide an opportunity to examine these rapidly evolving phenomena from Hungarian and international perspectives and through criminological, legal and broader social lenses.
Participation is free of charge. Please indicate your intention to attend by sending an email to krimtitkarsag@ajk.elte.hu with the subject line “International Symposium”.
Detailed Programme:
14:00–14:15
Opening Remarks and Introduction
14:15–14:45
Keynote Lecture
Dr Tine Munk (Nottingham Trent University):
Political Memes: From Youth Margins to the Mainstream
14:45–15:25
Brief Contributions (4 × 10 minutes)
15:25–15:45
Break
15:45–16:45
Moderated Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A
16:45–17:00
Closing Remarks