Digital narratives of Indonesian culinary culture on YouTube: a qualitative speech act and netnographic study of food vloggers

Abstract This study examines how Indonesian food vloggers use speech acts to mediate culinary experience, locality, authenticity, and audience engagement on YouTube. Using qualitative content analysis with netnographic observation, it analyzes 1669 coded utterance units from 14 videos by seven Indonesian food vloggers: Tanboy Kun, Mgdalenaf, Nex Carlos, Ken & Grat, Anak Kuliner, Kubiler, and Boengkoes. The coding scheme adapts Searle’s illocutionary categories—assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, and declarative—and adds phatic acts to capture relational communication. Assertive acts dominate, followed by directive, expressive, phatic, commissive, and declarative acts. Assertives build credibility through sensory description, price, portion, ingredients, place, and authenticity claims; directives invite viewers to access location information, interact with channels, and consider visiting food sites. Expressive and phatic acts support affective closeness and creator branding, whereas commissives sustain serial engagement. Declaratives remain rare because food vlogs rarely involve institutional authority. The study shows that food vlogging functions as digital culinary mediation: Pragmatic choices help make Indonesian dishes visible, credible, desirable, and shareable in online ethnic food discourse.