The Meaning of Covid-19 Memes on Instagram Account @poliklitik

Abstract

Since March 2021, Indonesia has become one of the countries affected by the pandemic covid-19. The number of infected with the Covid-19 virus is increasing day by day. The information that is continuously received by the public regarding the Covid-19 case makes people restless and stressed. Meme is a tool to express a person's emotions in written forms equipped with pictures that are considered to represent certain feelings and intentions wrapped in humour, but there is a message behind memes. This study aims to investigate the meaning of what is contained in memes as well as the response of what is shown in the column comments, using the Pierce's semiotics-pragmatics approach (Hoed, 2014). The data were memes with the theme of covid-19 in the @poliklitik Instagram account. The results of this study indicate that the meaning of memes on the @poliklitik Instagram account relates to criticism, especially to criticize government policies in dealing with covid-19 in Indonesia. The audience's responses included rejecting, supporting, and neutralizing.