Cultural and Social Value of Sri Lankan Music Videos on You Tube.

Abstract

In recent years, You Tube has become a very popular social media for sharing videos on various aspects. The production of music videos and releasing them in to the You Tube is becoming a fashion among artists. The audience of the music videos on the You Tube tends to comment upon them, and perhaps, such views are shared with each other in conversations or social media such as Facebook. These comments may reflect the cultural and social value of the videos. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the audience’s engagement with Sri Lankan music videos on You Tube in order to evaluate their cultural and social values. The results of such an evaluation may lead key people in the music video industry to different thoughts, and provide insights to the national level policy makers. The number of views for each video was taken in to consideration when selecting a sample of videos, and accordingly, top ten videos produced in Sri Lanka were the study’s focus. Qualitative Media Analysis (QMA) technique was used in analyzing the users’ comments in different languages. It was observed that the majority of videos had been criticized by the audience and sometimes it had become a means of sarcasm. Further there were some arguments in terms of adverse impact such videos have towards Sri Lankan culture, and social impairment.