USU Conference Systems, The 2nd International Interdisciplinary Conference on Language Affairs (IICoLA) 2020

Font Size: 
HUMOUR IN THE MIDST OF PANDEMIC: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON COVID-19 RELATED MEMES
Nadya Inda Syartanti

Last modified: 2020-11-22

Abstract


A meme is a place for self-consolation over the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic, which contains various implied meanings. In general, memes appear on internet media, so they are called internet memes, which consist of elements of text, context, and social cognition. This is very suitable to be studied using the critical discourse analysis instrument proposed by Van Dijk. Therefore, this study aims to describe the implicit meaning contained in memes related to Covid-19 through Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis approach. This meme is taken from social media and several pages that contain a collection of memes, where the subject of research data is in the form of images and writings contained in the meme that were collected from March to July 2020. The results showed that the Covid-19 meme contains more satire than humor. The satire contained in the Covid-19 meme can be interpreted negatively and positively. The meaning of negative satire in the Covid-19 meme is a negative satire or a harsh satire for people who underestimate the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic so that it seems indifferent by ignoring recommendations and regulations from WHO and the Ministry of Health. On the other hand, the meaning of positive satire in the Covid-19 meme is a positive satire or subtle satire in the form of an appeal that there is no need to underestimate the recommendations or regulations made by WHO and the Ministry of Health, the public only needs to take Covid-19 precautions as a form of health protocol.

Keywords: covid-19, critical discourse analysis, memes, pandemics, satire