Violation of the Politeness Principle in Political Humor on Instagram: A Pragmatic Analysis of Netizen Comments

Abstract

This study examines violations of the politeness principle in political humor on Instagram. This topic is important because netizen comments on political posts do not merely function as immediate responses but also serve as a means of expressing criticism, satire, disappointment, and distrust toward political actors, institutions, and public policies. This study aims to describe the forms of politeness principle violations and explain their pragmatic functions in constructing political humor in digital spaces. A descriptive qualitative approach with a pragmatic perspective was employed in this study. The data consisted of ten netizen comments collected from Instagram posts published by BBC Indonesia, kumparan.com, and narasinewsroom. The data were analyzed based on ten politeness maxims, namely the tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, sympathy maxim, opinion-reticence maxim, obligation of the speaker to the hearer maxim, obligation of the hearer to the speaker maxim, and feeling-reticence maxim. The data analysis revealed that violations of the politeness principle emerged through satire, irony, insinuation, sarcasm, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, generalization, and the use of emojis. These violations were used to convey criticism of the legal system, demands for justice, moral responsibility, public accountability, and the relationship between educational institutions and power. These findings indicate that political humor on Instagram does not merely function as entertainment but also operates as a pragmatic strategy for delivering socio-political evaluation in a sharp, concise, and publicly engaging manner.