STAND-UP COMEDY AS A MEDIUM OF GOVERNMENT CRITICISM COMMUNICATION THROUGH A NETNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF NETIZENS’ RESPONSES TO MENSREA BY PANDJI PRAGIWAKSONO

Abstract

This study examines stand-up comedy as a space for criticism of the government by analyzing netizens' responses to Mensrea, a stand-up comedy performance by Pandji Pragiwaksono, on social media platforms. The rapid development of digital media has transformed political communication, enabling criticism of government policies and political elites to be expressed through informal and popular cultural forms. Using a qualitative approach with a netnographic method, this study observes and analyzes comments and reactions from netizens on YouTube and Instagram to understand how political criticism is received, interpreted, and sustained in the digital public sphere.The findings indicate that the majority of netizens support the criticism of the government conveyed in Mensrea. Netizens actively participate in the process of meaning-making by reinforcing, expanding, and contextualizing the criticism through reflective and argumentative comments. This interaction demonstrates that audiences function as active participants rather than passive spectators. From the perspective of public sphere theory, social media operates as an alternative digital public sphere that facilitates deliberative political discourse. Meanwhile, audience reception theory reveals a dominant reading in which the criticism is largely accepted and reproduced by netizens. This study contributes to the fields of political communication and popular culture by highlighting stand-up comedy as a legitimate medium for political criticism in the digital era.