Meme Wars as Socially Situated Learning: Learning in Online Communities of Hate, Conspiracy, and Insurgency

Learning is important in a pluralistic democracy, to enable citizens to make informed decisions. However, with the rise of the internet and social media, we need more than ever to understand how learning is shaped by social context and intertwined with issues of identity and belonging. One theoretical framework that addresses these social aspects of learning comes from the work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger on socially situated learning in communities of practice. This article focuses on what many would consider to be the darker side of learning—the rise of hate, disinformation/conspiracy, and insurgency in online communities. Specifically, it analyzes Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America by Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss, and Brian Friedberg (2022) through the lens of Lave and Wenger’s social learning theory. Lave and Wenger’s ideas of learning as legitimate peripheral participation and the negotiation of meaning and identity in communities of practice provide analytic tools to help us understand learning in online communities, the recent “meme wars,” and their real-life consequences for individuals and our democratic society.