“CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE AND IDEOLOGY IN AI-BASED EDUCATIONAL CONTENT ON INSTAGRAM AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS”

Abstrak

The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within social media spaces has transformed the way university students access, understand, and interpret learning processes in the digital era. As a visual-digital platform, Instagram functions not only as a medium for sharing educational information but also as a discursive arena that shapes perceptions of intelligence, productivity, and students’ academic identities. This study aims to analyze how language and ideology are represented in AI-based educational content on Instagram and how students interpret these experiences within their academic lives. This research employed a qualitative approach using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis model to understand the relationship between digital language practices, students’ social experiences, and the underlying ideological structures. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, digital observations of AI educational content on Instagram, and social media document analysis. The research participants consisted of 15 active student Instagram users and three AI educational content creators selected purposively. Data analysis was conducted using a thematic approach by reflectively interpreting language patterns, visual symbols, and participants’ experiences. The findings indicate that AI educational content on Instagram reproduces ideologies of efficiency and academic productivity, thereby constructing new standards of the ideal student in the digital era. Students experience an ambivalent dynamic between the convenience offered by technology and concerns regarding the loss of reflective thinking processes, accompanied by pressures surrounding academic identity within a competitive digital culture. Nevertheless, some students demonstrate critical negotiation abilities toward the dominance of AI narratives on social media. This study contributes theoretically to the development of Critical Discourse Analysis within the context of social media–based digital education and reinforces the importance of critical AI literacy in higher education amid technological transformation.