ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the important themes of the Russian resistant Twitter users and asks whether they were able to create their own sustainable discourse or had to counteract to the themes of the media mainstream. Many educated Russians who took part in civil activism praise the freedom of speech, free market economy, resistance to the state oppression and manipulation. The chapter explores whether satirical communication online facilitated alternative political talk, and was instrumental to overcome censorship and serve as coded in-jokes to raise the awareness on political issues. It shows how supporters of the government employed political memes; what narratives the memes contributed to in the pro-government and resistant communication flows on Russian Twitter. Profanity played a serious role in resistance communication during the Soviet era. Resistant meme sharers frequently pointed to the manipulation of state and media propaganda and the subsequent brainwashing and deliberation of politics on the Internet.
