Analyzing Speech Act on Public Sentiment in Responses to President Prabowo’s New Policies Post on Instagram

Selly Sitompul; Octavia Amelia; Albert Zebua; Elyana Manurung; Meisuri Meisuri

doi:10.59841/blaze.v3i3.2822

Authors

Selly Sitompul Universitas Negeri Medan
Octavia Amelia Universitas Negeri Medan
Albert Zebua Universitas Negeri Medan
Elyana Manurung Universitas Negeri Medan
Meisuri Meisuri Universitas Negeri Medan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59841/blaze.v3i3.2822

Keywords:

Expressive Speech Act, Policy, Sentiment

Abstract

In the digital era, social media platforms like Instagram have become critical arenas for public discourse, especially in political communication. This study investigates public sentiment and expressive speech acts in Instagram comments responding to two of President Prabowo’s key policy announcements: the Free Nutritious Meal Program and the policy of direct bank transfers for regional ASN teacher allowances. Guided by Searle’s theory of speech acts, particularly expressive acts such as thanking, complementing, congratulating, deploring, condoling, apologizing, and welcoming, the study analyzes 60 purposively selected comments, 30 for each policy. The findings show that deploring dominates the discourse, with 67% in the meal program post and 73% in the ASN allowance post, indicating prevailing negative sentiment marked by criticism, disappointment, and frustration. Positive speech acts such as complimenting and thanking were present but marginal. These results highlight the importance of transparent policy implementation and the need for improved public communication strategies to address citizen concerns more effectively on digital platforms.

References

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press.

Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press.

Abubakar, R. (2021). Pengantar metodologi penelitian. SUKA-Press.

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Darmawan, A. S., Degaf, A., & Anggrisia, N. F. (2025). Expressive speech acts and public sentiments in netizen responses to political posts on X. Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, 13(2), 960–970.

Fadillah, U., Prayitno, H. J., Farhan, M. A., Sutopo, A., Noor, A. F., & Syaputra, R. A. (2024). Expressive speech acts in the Instagram comment column and their relevance to the formation of student moral values in the era of globalization. In H. J. Prayitno et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Education for All (ICEDUALL 2023), Humanities Research 822 (pp. 28–42). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-226-2_4

Fitriyah, T., Nashoih, A. K., Fajar, Q., & Barkah, S. M. H. (2023). Expressive speech act in comments on Instagram BBC Arabic. Al Bayan: Jurnal Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Arab, 15(2), 123–134. https://dx.doi.org/10.24042/albayan.v14i2.12127

Martanto, M. L., & Istiono, W. (2024). Sentiment analysis of M-Paspor app reviews using multinomial Naive Bayes. Journal of Logistics, Informatics and Service Science, 11(10), 311–326.

Mehta, P., & Pandya, S. (2020). A review on sentiment analysis methodologies, practices and applications. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 9(2), 601–609.

Permana, T. J., & Mauriyat, A. (2021). Analysis of speech acts in Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s political speech. Professional Journal of English Education, 4(1), 62–68.

Ricca, H., & Ambalegin. (2022). Expressive speech acts found in Love at First Swipe web series. Journal of Culture Arts Literature and Linguistics, 8(1), 13–24.

Simanullang, F. M., & Fatmawati. (2024). Expressive speech in the comment column on the Instagram account @infopku. Retorika: Jurnal Ilmu Bahasa, 10(3), 803–809. https://doi.org/10.55637/jr.10.3.10424.803-809