Multimodal Narrative of Childfree in @mubadalah.id: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis

In Indonesia, the choice of childfree has led social media accounts such as @mubadalah.id to voice their concerns. This study aims to examine how @mubadalah.id portrays childfree narratives in its posts. The researcher employed Machin and Mayr's multimodal critical discourse analysis to explore the texts and visuals in the childfree posts and to present the account's narrative from an Islamic perspective. The findings indicate that @mubadalah.id subtly endorses the choice of childfree, as it is a personal decision that does not contradict the reproductive function. The account imposes marriage as sunnah (advisable) and provides sample reasonings on childfree from an Islamic perspective. The account points out changes in mindset and social and economic aspects of contemporary society that favor childfree. Future research can further examine accounts with similar backgrounds or diverse perspectives, as this study focuses only on the perspective of childfree practice from one account.