While different, memetic warfare shares similarities with traditional propaganda and misinformation tactics, developing into a more common tool used by government institutions and other groups to influence public opinion.
[1] Over time, the term "meme" became commonly understood as an image, text, video or other transferrable form of digital information, typically spread for the purpose of humor.
Jeff Giesea, writing in NATO's Stratcom COE Defense Strategic Communications journal, defines memetic warfare as "competition over narrative, ideas, and social control in a social-media battlefield.
[6] Evidence of memetic warfare and other applications of cyber-attacks aiding Russia in their efforts to annex Crimea has been made apparent by reports of roughly 19 million dollars being spent to fund "troll farms" and bot accounts by the Russian government.
[8] Memetic warfare on the part of 4chan and r/The_Donald sub-reddit is widely credited with assisting Donald Trump in winning the election in an event they call 'The Great Meme War'.