Transmedia storytelling and memetic warfare: Ukraine’s wartime public diplomacy

Ukraine has long been perceived internationally as a troubled post-Soviet country with crucial internal divisions. The “cleft” country narrative was dominant across media, expert, and even academic discourses. The 2022 full-scale unprovoked invasion by Russia has led, among other things, to the striking change of narrative about Ukraine. Instead of being portrayed by others, Ukraine has managed to advance its own strategic narrative—one of a brave, unified, and defiant nation, struggling against an evil empire. We discuss several factors that can explain the successful advent of the new narrative. While peculiarities of global journalistic storytelling contributed to the oversimplified narrative of Ukraine as a divided country before the full-scale invasion, the new narrative has benefited from these inherent features of journalistic coverage as well. Ukraine’s wartime public diplomacy has largely relied on effective transmedia storytelling. Embracing the third phase of mediatization, Ukraine has mastered memetic warfare of various formats across different media platforms. The case of Ukraine’s storytelling approach in times of war suggests the need for further exploration of the mechanisms of transmedia storytelling and its implications for public diplomacy research.