Mass media's cultivation effect on traditional cultural attire: quantitatively describing downstream shifts in the social identity of tertiary students using questionnaires

Abstract

A culture’s traditional attire represents that culture’s values and beliefs, an individual’s cultural identity and forms part of that individual’s cultural pride. However, not many students have been observed dressing according to their traditional cultural attires; instead, what has been observed in many students is their high levels of engagement with mass media platforms. This research argues that traditional cultural attire is becoming replaced by fashion trends portrayed by mass media platforms, leading to a loss in cultural values and cultural identities within societies. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate if mass media has indeed influenced the decrease in traditional cultural attire being worn amongst tertiary students. This was achieved through the use of a quantitative cross-sectional study, as well as convenience sampling. Data was collected using closed-ended online questionnaires, which were convenient to distribute to a large sample and easy to analyse. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis of the data and the results indicated that mass media has a cultivation effect on traditional cultural attire as it creates a shift in the social identities of tertiary students to minimise their cultural identification through extensive exposure to fashion trends that tertiary students aspire to model.