Covid 19 Memes in Social Media Instagram

Abstract

Since early 2021, Indonesia is one of the affected countries of Covid 19 pandemic. The rapidly and highly spread of this virus forces people to have some changes of way of life. In the middle of March, Indonesian government makes policy of implementing PSBB (large-scale social restriction) instead of district-quarantine due to some considerations. In fact, that policy still has no clear and firm regulation, thus there are still many people interact to each other freely. As a consequence of that phenomenon, the infected patients of Covid 19 are increasingly risen. It obviously makes doctors and medices are overwhelmed and exhausted. To support them and to respond to government policy, some creative people create memes as the reaction to the government in handling Covid 19. Memes of Covid 19 issues in Instagram are used as the data of this research. The objectives are to investigate the sign and meaning through semiotics-pragmatics approach, freedom of expressing, and criticizing. To sum up, this research examines how the symbol, content, and comment as the critics to the government policy. This research can be explained that government policy in handling covid 19 as the symbol. Memes as the reaction of people whether they are pros or cons to the policy. In conclusion, memes can be considered as a tool to express, argue, and criticize the government policy in handling Covid 19. Lastly, the research findings show how the freedom of expressing, commenting, and criticizing government policies as the advancement of cyber digital democracy.