Visualizing Hegemony: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Digital Comics as Political Publicity for the Free Nutritious Meal Program on Instagram
Abstract
In the contemporary digital era, state institutions increasingly deploy visually driven social media strategies to manufacture public consensus and manage policy implementation crises. In Indonesia, the newly established National Nutrition Agency (BGN) utilized Instagram comics to socialize the massive Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program amidst widespread operational and fiscal controversies. This study critically evaluates the strategic deployment of these digital comics as a mechanism of political publicity and ideological representation. Employing a qualitative case study design and Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis, the research investigates the textual, discursive, and sociocultural dimensions of "MBG Komik Series 1" alongside expert interviews, secondary audit documents, and citizen commentary. Findings reveal that the state utilizes visual sanitization and emotional appeals to construct a flawless policy narrative, deliberately masking severe empirical realities such as massive fiscal mismanagement and a nationwide public health crisis. Furthermore, this top-down digital pacification triggers a boomerang effect, where digitally empowered citizens leverage interactive platform affordances to mount fierce counter-hegemonic resistance. The study concludes that these digital comics function as calculated political spectacles aimed at securing long-term electoral investments rather than benign public service initiatives. Ultimately, this research implies that relying on over-engineered visual propaganda disconnected from material performance destroys institutional credibility, necessitating an urgent shift toward transparent, performance-backed democratic communication. This study contributes to political communication literature by integrating Critical Discourse Analysis with political publicity theory, providing a novel framework to understand how state visual hegemony is operationalized and actively contested in emerging digital democracies.