Chapter I: Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

The digital era has revolutionized how language is taught and learned. Instagram, with its visual-centric focus, has emerged as a fertile ground for informal English as a Foreign Language (EFL) communication. Among the various formats, meme-based teaching has gained significant traction due to its ability to combine humor, cultural relevance, and linguistic scaffolding.

This study focuses on @kotesu_8, an Indonesian Instagram account that specializes in teaching English grammar through the medium of internet memes. While the account's popularity is measurable through views and likes, the multimodal construction of its content and the thematic nature of audience engagement remain unexplored in academic literature.

1.2 Research Gap

Previous studies have extensively explored multimodal discourse analysis in traditional media like advertisements and magazines. However, there is a significant scarcity of research that bridges the gap between internet memes as a pedagogical tool and real-world audience reception on social media platforms like Instagram. Most existing research focuses either on the visual design alone or on the linguistic content in isolation, often neglecting the participatory nature of audience engagement that transforms the lesson into a bilingual cultural event.

1.3 Problems of the Study

  1. How are visual and linguistic elements composed to construct English language lessons in the meme-based Instagram reels of @kotesu_8?
  2. How do followers engage with and respond to the meme-based English teaching content as reflected in the comment sections?

1.3 Aims of the Study

Concordant with the research problems, this study aims to:

  • Analyze the multimodal composition of the lesson using Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) framework.
  • Explore the patterns of audience engagement through Braun and Clarke (2006) thematic analysis.

1.4 Scope of Discussion

This study is limited in terms of both data and theory. In terms of data, this study focuses on the three Instagram reels with the highest view counts from the @kotesu_8 account. Together, these reels cover different aspects of English grammar including plural noun rules and verb-ing forms.

In terms of theory, this study is limited to the application of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) visual grammar framework for the multimodal analysis and Braun and Clarke (2006) thematic analysis for the comment section analysis.

1.5 Research Method

This study uses a qualitative research method. The data were collected through the documentation method, capturing screenshots of key frames from each reel and exporting the comment sections using third party tools.

The analysis followed a two-pronged approach: first, a multimodal reading of the visual artifacts, and second, an inductive thematic analysis of the audience's linguistic responses.