Asian Journal of Media and Communication

Speech Acts on Memes: A pragmatic study of Graduation T-shirts of Graduands

Abdu Dan'Azumi; Yahaya Ibrahim Aliyu , Kabir Saidu Abdullahi — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Memes are linguistic tools for communication. Their power in the domain of communication, general discussions and writings from mainstream news media to digital media attract attentions. That, understanding their pragmatic effect becomes necessary, especially in today's digital world. This paper offers a pragmatic study of memes on graduation T-shirt of graduads. It specifically framed to ascertain how speech acts a humorously realised through memes. Memes are communication tools common at all levels in society; it is a powerful means of communication by civilisations. It communicates messages of valuable quality, which calls for pragmatic interventions to make explicit certain shrouded issues. The paper formulates two objectives: discuss the pragmatic power of memes in communicating messages, and identity the kind of speech acts memes contained. Guided the paper is Perlocutionary Acts, the third act of John Austin's (1962) Speech Acts Theory.

The paper, however, is descriptive in nature, and analysed memes. The data were sourced from graduands' T-shirts of the Federal University Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State, Nigeria. The findings reveal that the studied memes perform different speech acts like persuading, enlightening, inspiring, warning and convincing.

Framing Air Pollution: Analyzing Coverage, Themes, and Policy Discourse in the New York Times

Aydogdy Berdimuratov — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study investigates how The New York Times frames air pollution, a pressing environmental challenge with far-reaching implications. Employing content analysis guided by agenda-setting theory, it examines 53 articles published between July 2024 and September 2024 to understand coverage frequency, thematic focus, framing strategies, policy discussions, and geographic emphasis. Findings reveal a dominance of crisis dreams and health-focused themes, with limited attention to policy solutions and grassroots perspectives. National and international narratives, particularly European ones, overshadow local issues, reflecting biases and coverage. Despite highlighting urgency, the lack of solution-oriented reporting risks fostering public helplessness. The study underscores the need for balanced environmental communication, integrating actionable narratives and diverse stakeholder voices to enhance public engagement and policy advocacy. Limitations, including reliance on a single publication and manual coding, suggest avenues for future research to explore broader media dynamics and diverse environmental topics. This analysis contributes to understanding the media's role in shaping discourse on environmental governance.

Moral Character and Virtue in Anime: An Aristotelian Reading of Wind Breaker Season 2 Episode 10

Ahmad Farid Fanani — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The rise of social apathy in modern society reflects a deeper moral disconnection that calls for renewed ways of engaging with ethical reflection. This study examines how Wind Breaker Anime Season 2 Episode 10 represents Aristotelian virtue ethics as a narrative form of moral imagination within popular culture. Rather than assessing audience impact, this study highlights the representational potential of anime as a medium that recontextualizes classical virtue ethics within modern moral discourse. Employing a qualitative content analysis, the research explores how arete (moral excellence), phronesis (practical wisdom), and eudaimonia (flourishing) are expressed through the characters’ actions and emotional transformations, particularly those of Suzurin. The episode’s portrayal of apology, empathy, forgiveness, and self-acceptance reflects Aristotle’s doctrine of the golden mean and the process of moral habituation, while collective support and the granting of second chances manifest justice and friendship (philia) in a social context. The findings suggest that Wind Breaker articulates the moral possibilities of virtue ethics within contemporary youth narratives, illustrating how classical ethical concepts can be reinterpreted through visual storytelling.

Visual Bias in Indonesian Platform-Based Journalism: Media Ownership and Instagram Coverage in Radar Cirebon

Akhmad Muzadi — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study examines how visual bias is articulated in local digital journalism by analysing Radar Cirebon’s Instagram coverage during the 2024 mayoral election in Cirebon, Indonesia. Employing a qualitative content analysis, eighty-two Instagram posts published during the official campaign period were examined using Denis McQuail’s framework of media performance, focusing on presentational features such as personalization, dramatization, stereotyping, juxtaposition, and accuracy. The findings reveal a consistent pattern of visual and textual alignment that favoured the media owner–affiliated candidate, expressed through evaluative captions, aesthetic personalization, and emotionally charged imagery. Rather than manifesting through explicit misinformation, bias operated at the level of representation and interpretation, shaped by both ownership structures and the platform logic of Instagram. Situated within debates on platformization and the political economy of media, the study highlights the particular vulnerability of local journalism in Indonesia, where close proximity between media ownership and political actors can blur editorial boundaries in digital contexts. By repositioning McQuail’s media performance framework within platform-based journalism, this research contributes to visual communication scholarship and underscores the need for stronger ethical safeguards to protect editorial independence in local digital media ecosystems.

Digital Health Communication on Instagram: Social Media and Breastfeeding Education in Indonesia

Nadia Wasta Utami, Syanthia Wingi — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This research examines the role of Instagram as a platform for digital health communication concerning breastfeeding education in Indonesia. The study centers on four Instagram accounts with diverse orientations: @aimi_asi (a non-profit organization), @momuung.id (a commercial enterprise), and two personal accounts, @stephanieking (breastfeeding and lactation consultant) and @brendashahnaz (healthcare professionals). Utilizing qualitative analysis, the investigation explores the studied social media’s post characteristics, from post content, post form, to post delivery. The results indicate that both institutional and personal accounts actively participate in health education by employing multimodal content, which includes informational posts, instructional videos, and personal narratives. All accounts adopt affective and participatory approaches that blend emotional storytelling with evidence-based information. Specifically, the first account by AIMI ASI emphasizes the economic and environmental sustainability aspects of breastfeeding, whereas Momuung.id combines health awareness with product promotion. In contrast, the personal accounts leverage authenticity and lived experience to craft relatable maternal narratives that enhance emotional connection and foster community engagement. The analysis reveals that these digital platforms exemplify a hybrid communication model that integrates medical knowledge, emotional empathy, and cultural values within the collective contexts of everyday life in Indonesia. This hybrid approach transforms breastfeeding advocacy from a hierarchical public health initiative into a participatory, community oriented dialogue. The study contributes to broadening non-Western perspectives within digital health communication scholarship by highlighting the significance of cultural sensitivity, emotional resonance, and trustbuilding in shaping effective digital health discourse. Ultimately, Instagram functions as both an informational and affective ecosystem that promotes maternal health literacy and facilitates social empowerment through networked communication.