Digital Battlegrounds: Multimodal Humor and Ideological Framing in Memes of the 2025 Pakistan-India Conflict

Abstract

This study explores how Pakistani Generation Z uses memes as a coping mechanism and a form of digital resistance during the 2025 Pakistan-India conflict. It analyzes around 90 memes collected from social media platforms. This study introduces Meme Frame Analysis (MFA), an extension of Framing Theory that integrates multimodal discourse analysis and semiotics to examine memes as ideological texts. MFA examines humor strategies, visual-textual interactions, and ideological messages in memes, focusing on themes like self-deprecation, anti-India satire, and historical references. Unlike traditional Framing Theory, which does not fully address the participatory, viral, and multimodal nature of memes, MFA uses diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing categories to explain how humor, irony, and shareability spread ideological messages online. Using NVivo coding, the study finds that about 40% of memes feature self-deprecation, showing resilience in the face of economic and geopolitical challenges. Other memes negotiate national identity and challenge dominant narratives through satire and historical references. The findings present memes as micro-narratives that diagnose problems, suggest solutions, and mobilize political-cultural identities, embedding ideology through humor. This study advances digital humanities and conflict studies by framing memes as powerful ideological tools that shape and contest narratives in digital spaces. It suggests that the frames themselves are ideological containers — memes aren’t just jokes, they’re micro narratives that diagnose, prescribe, and mobilize in line with political-cultural identities.