Western Music and Islamic Character among Generation Z: A Qualitative Analysis of Digital Music Culture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58230/4d6gzh25Keywords:
Digital Culture, Generation Z, Islamic Education, Moral Character, Western MusicAbstract
The growing circulation of Western popular music through digital platforms raises important questions about how cultural values are represented and negotiated within Islamic education. This study examines moral, emotional, and identity-related values in Western popular music and publicly accessible digital discourse relevant to Muslim Generation Z. Using qualitative digital content analysis, digital materials were selected through criterion-based purposive sampling from YouTube, TikTok, and Spotify between January and July 2025. The corpus comprised 12 songs by Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Billie Eilish, 300 YouTube comments, 150 TikTok comments/posts or short-video responses, 20 relevant hashtags, and 25 platform metadata records. Data were analyzed through inductive and deductive thematic content analysis and interpreted using ta’dib, tazkiyah al-nafs, akhlaq al-karimah, social learning theory, and cultivation theory. Three themes emerged: emotional identification and moral ambiguity, negotiation of autonomy and individual-oriented values, and selective adaptation through digital recontextualization of Islamic values. The findings indicate that digital popular music functions as a site of emotional meaning-making and value negotiation without establishing causal effects on moral development. The study contributes an integrative perspective and proposes Critical Islamic Media Literacy as a pedagogical framework for ethical engagement with digital popular culture within contemporary Islamic educational contexts in Indonesia.
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