THE INFLUENCE OF THE ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE (AU) TREND THEMED ON BALINESE FOLKLORE IN FOSTERING TEENAGE READING INTEREST IN BALINESE FOLKLORE

Abstrak

This research is motivated by the low reading interest of
teenagers in Bali towards Balinese folklore, so researchers
utilize the Alternative Universe (AU) trend with the theme
of Balinese folklore which can be accessed through the
TikTok application to see the effect of AU on increasing
teenagers' interest in reading in Bali. The objectives in this
study are, (1) Analyzing the AU trend with the theme of
Balinese folklore can foster teenagers' interest in reading
(2) Analyzing the effectiveness of AU trend with the theme
of Balinese folklore can foster teenagers' interest in
reading Balinese folklore. This research is expected to
provide benefits for the community, other researchers, and
the government. The method used in this research is
quantitative method which was conducted from October -
November 2024 at SMAN Bali Mandara. The subjects in
this research are active teenagers who are social media
users and have an interest in fictional stories, especially
AU, while the object of this research is the empowerment
of Balinese folklore through AU media as a means to
increase reading interest. Data analysis was carried out by
conducting an independent t-test and normality test. Based
on the results of the respondent questionnaire above, it can
be interpreted that the score on adolescents' interest in
Balinese folklore in AU format is 71%, the frequency of
adolescents reading Balinese folklore is 82%, the desire of
adolescents to read more Balinese folklore is 84%, and
adolescents' understanding of the content of Balinese
folklore reaches 83%. While the questionnaire data and
testing that has been done obtained the results of the
Sig.0.021 value which is smaller than 0.05. This shows that
the AU trend with the theme of Balinese folklore has a
significant influence on increasing interest in reading and
preserving Balinese folklore among teenagers.

Keywords:
Alternative Universe,
Balinese Folklore,
Reading Interest,
Teenagers