Survey Result: K-Drama Consumption Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

[Masyarakat dan Budaya: Volume 11, Nomor 16, Agustus 2020] 

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By Syarfina Mahya Nadila, Ranny Rastati, Annisa Meutia Ratri, and Wahyudi Akmaliah (Researcher of Research Center for Society and Culture LIPI)

The COVID-19 outbreak in Indonesia that occurred since March 2020, has made people have to do activities at home. The amount of free time makes some people choose to spend their time in various activities, among those are watching Korean drama (K-Drama). Several K-Drama have gained much interests during the COVID-19 in Indonesia, such as The World of the Married, Crash Landing on You, and Hospital Playlist.

COVID-19 pandemic, which force people to stay at home, seems to be one of the reasons for the soaring popularity of The World of the Married; it even reached the highest rating in South Korean television history (Rastati, The Conversation, May 22, 2020). With this background, our research team decided to conduct a study on the consumption of K-Drama in Indonesia before and during COVID-19 pandemic.

The study used a quantitative approach through surveys as a method of data collection. This research was conducted during COVID-19 pandemic; therefore, researchers used the Google form application to distribute questionnaires with links that could be accessed by research subjects.

The data collection took place on April 16-18, 2020. The population in this study is people who watched K-Drama during COVID-19 pandemic. The sampling technique uses non-probability sampling so that the results of the study are only apply to the sample level and  to capture phenomena at the moment (Marvasti 2018).

The total sample is 924 respondents who live in various parts of Indonesia, such as Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Bekasi, Bandung, Surabaya, Malang, Jogyakarta, Sukabumi, Kudus, Semarang, Aceh, Padang, Medan, Lampung, Belitung, Banjarmasin, Samarinda, Pontianak, Makassar, Palu, Toraja , Denpasar, Lombok, Ende NTT, Sumbawa NTB, Nabire Papua, and Jayapura. The age of the respondents also varies greatly, starting from the youngest age of 14-year-old, to the age of 68-year-old. The average age of respondents is 30-year-old.

In data analysis, this study used descriptive analysis and cross-tabulation analysis with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program. The analysis on this tool aims to transform the collected data into a form that is easy to understand and concise. The descriptive analysis is then produced by describing the data without making generalizations (Loeb et al. 2017).

This study focuses on several variables such as duration and frequency of watching K-Drama and demographic data of respondents. With the SPSS program, researchers conducted a data normality test to see the level of normality of the data, especially to see whether data were normally distributed or not. The results of this study will be visualized by using the appropriate chart or diagram.

The survey was answered by women as the majority respondents.  About 92.6% respondents are female and the rest 7.4% are a male. Based on our survey, it found out that during the pandemic situation, viewer of K-Drama increased. Using McNemar’s test, phi value was 0.007 less than alpha 0.05. Therefore, H0 rejected and accept H1. Therefore, the data suggests that there is behavior difference among our respondents in term of daily consumption of K-Drama before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among 924 respondents, 842 respondents claimed that they watched K-Drama during COVID-19 pandemic.  From those who watched, 73 of them are the new viewers that prior to pandemic never had any experience on watching K-Drama. At the same time, our survey also found 82 respondents that could divide into two groups. First, are the one that has experience of watching K-drama before pandemic yet do not watch at all during the spread of COVID-19. Second, are respondents that do not watch K-drama at all before or during the pandemic.

In term of frequency of consumption, there are also several important findings. From 842 respondents, 41.3% respondents watched K-Drama more than 6 times a week. Moreover, there was the duration differences of watched K-Drama before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The differences were in mean of duration watched K-Drama. Before the COVID-19 pandemic in average, our respondents watching times is around 2.7 hours per day. Meanwhile, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the average watching time has increased to 4.6 hours per day.

The results of this study showed that leisure consumption is important during the time of crisis. To find out more about the reasons and effects related to K-drama during the COVID-19 pandemic, our team suggestion is to conduct further research using qualitative methods. The results of this study can be a preliminary background for further research related to K-Drama and COVID-19 in Indonesia (Editor Ibnu Nadzir).

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References

Loeb, S., Dynarski, S., McFarland, D., Morris, P., Reardon, S., & Reber, S. (2017). Descriptive analysis in education: A guide for researchers. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, (March), 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS.2003.87.5.550

Marvasti, A. (2018). Research methods. The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems, 1(3), 23–37. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108656184.003

Rastati, Ranny. “Pandemi dan perselingkuhan: faktor di belakang kesuksesan drama Korea ‘The World of the Married’”. The Conversation, 22 May 2020, https://theconversation.com/pandemi-dan-perselingkuhan-faktor-di-belakang-kesuksesan-drama-korea-the-world-of-the-married-138809

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Researcher Team (all authors contributed equally to this work)

Syarfina Mahya Nadila (Sociologist, Research Center for Society and Culture LIPI)

Ranny Rastati (Communication and Pop Culture, Research Center for Society and Culture LIPI)

Annisa Meutia Ratri (Sociologist, Research Center for Society and Culture LIPI)

Wahyudi Akmaliah (Cultural Studies, Research Center for Society and Culture LIPI)

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For correspondence please contact ranny.rastati@gmail.com