E-Journal of Tourism Vol.10. No.1. (2023): 129-137

An Analysis of Prominent Cultural Values in Indonesian Folktale Tourism Spots through Instagram Caption

Cynantia Rachmijati*, Sri Supiah Cahyati

IKIP Siliwangi, Indonesia

*Corresponding Author: [email protected]

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24922/eot.v10i1.96300

Article Info

Submitted:

January 3rd 2023 Accepted:

March 24th 2023

Published: March 30th 2023


Abstract

This paper deals with the phenomenon of famous tourism spot in Indonesia which were empowered by folktale through Instagram, such as: Malin Kundang, Sangkuriang, Roro Jonggrang/Prambanan, Danau Toba, and many more. There was some research addressed the tourism spots, nevertheless there’s lack of research on cultural values of folktales in relation to tourism spots in Indonesia and how its aspects deal with its popularity and its marketing. With the development of social media, e.g., Instagram, it brings culture of tourism spot and literature works together and then uploaded it through series of pictures, captions, and stories. This research aimed to analyze the prominent cultural values of the famous tourism folktale spot in Indonesia and employed qualitative method through content analysis studies. The identification towards the Instagram captions on this research were categorized through cultural aspects based on “Four senses of Culture” by Adaskou, Britten, and Fahsi. Based on the cultural sense proposed, it is found 71.42% aesthetic culture sense, 42.85% sociological culture sense, 28.57% semantic culture sense, and last 14.28% pragmatic culture sense. From these findings it can be concluded that for the Instagram and folklore related content, photos alone it isn’t sufficient. To be more eye catching, viewers content enjoyer needs to be seduced with good captions, good hashtags, and storytelling as well. Further research might involve stories and music as background choice to be more precise and enticing in promoting folktale tourism.

Keywords: prominent cultural values; content analysis study; instagram caption.

INTRODUCTION

Background

People love reading stories and children usually put them to sleep by reading bedtime stories to them. Every country has its own unique story which is passed down from generation to generation and thus resulting in the birth of folk stories. This kind of story usually developed from mouth to http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot

mouth and the concept and aim of it is usually to entertain. Folktales are also a perfect example of how people in communities work and how people share and develop their culture.

By sharing folktales and folklore as oral tradition and as people share their stories, folktale and folklore, those habits and tradition also as a means of documenting, inventory, sharing cultural values. As

stated by Maharani (2018) a folktale, which is also written in folk tales, is one of a kind of traditional story which basically grows and develops within the society since a long long time ago and has been inherited from one generation to the next through oral tradition.

Nevertheless, in this era of Coco Melon, My little pony, Netflix, Spongebob, Frozen, and many other popular movies and series for kids, folktales still haven’t lost its touch and still be used as learning materials and parents’ bedtimes stories even until today.

Folktale and folklore stories are useful to be used as learning and teaching materials for language lessons and character education. The reason it would be great as learning and teaching materials are because they are entertaining, insightful, teach about life, culture, and tradition. Furthermore, Syafrony & Suwanpratest (2016) stated that most folklore consisted of these 7 values, they are: gratitude, good karma, supernatural beliefs, holy spirit, men dominant, inner virtue, and role of woman and children.

These are based on Asian folktales which are from Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, China, and Korea. Meanwhile, it’s viewed differently by Sarumpaet in Sa-rahtika (2018) which stated that most folktales usually display themes such as obedience, men’s wrath, women’s loyalty, envy and sibling rivalry, trickery and childishness. She also added that folktales also tend to be sexist, brutal, and celebrate female passivity.

On the other hand, literature folktales do not always have negative contexts. Stories in literary folk tales tend to have additional moral depth over a simple one given by parents at home and classroom. The stories tell of moral issues; whereas good must be rewarded while evil does not and cannot pass unnoticed. Moral lessons through stories engage students' thoughts and emotions and can even http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot

lead to the creation of mental images

Some famous literature works then created to be famous tourist spot such as Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, Harry Potter Museum in Disneyland Japan, Shakespeare, and Company in France and many more. Some tourist spots also developed the folklore and folktale behind their tourism spot to garner the visits from tourist. Stories vary from one region to another, from one people to the other: their kinds evanescence, or transform in the course of time. Change comes, as well as new species, but stories are being told all the time; they are a part of human life and socializing. Often, they are the soul of the place, that “something special” which makes the tourist destination in this ever-globalizing world differ from every other similar place, since more and more tourist destinations are becoming alike. That is material, true and authentic, created as a result of folk creativity, and that is what makes it unique. That is a part of a potential tourist destination’s personality.

Some famous tourism spot in Indonesia which was “enriched” with folktale are Malin Kundang, Sangkuriang, Roro Jonggrang/Prambanan, Danau Toba, and many more. Almost all regions in Indonesia have attractive tourism potential, but not all of them are well narrated to tourists. Whereas according to Nur Alam in Bakti et al. (2019), the purpose of storytelling is to make a tourist attraction more attractive and make potential tourists curious. Therefore, marketing techniques using tourism storytelling are considered to have the opportunity to increase the number of tourist visits and foreign exchange.

The right use of media during the Covid-19 pandemic is in digital media or online media forms. One of the social media that is widely used by Indonesian people today is Instagram. According to data released by NapoleonCat (2020), Instagram users in Indonesia in May 2020 reached 69.2 million users. Based on this

data and information, it can be said that currently Instagram is a social media that is very loved by the people of Indonesia. The use of Instagram in terms of business, of course Instagram has features that can make it easy for business people to promote their products or services online with a wide reach. When it is used as tourism promoting business through captions, then Instagram is one of the most popular places to do so.

With the development of social media, IG or known as Instagram is also one of the most popular platforms which brings culture of tourism spot and literature works together and then uploaded it through series of pictures, captions, and stories. The tourism spot and combined it with the allure of the folktale's material and fruit of creativity and that's what makes it unique. It's part of the personality of a tourist destination and that is interesting to see it from the point of view of cultural values.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Folktale

Folktale is an example of folklore. Definition taken from Merriam-Webster stated that folktale is characteristically anonymous, timeless, and place less tale circulated orally among a people. This story is passed from generation to generation without knowing who the original author is and is usually spread by word of mouth. The folktale structure itself because it is part of a narrative text usually consists of 3 parts, namely orientation which is the initial part, complication where the character faces a problem or conflict and closes with a resolution where the problem faced by the character is resolved properly (Sayeef, 2019).

Related to the types of folklore, Bascom (1965) divided its type into three: myth, legend, and folktale. A folk tale, which is also written in popular ones, is

part of a kind of traditional story that grows basically develops within society for a long time and has been inherited from one generation to another the oral tradition. As the most common folk tale, folk is defined as a story, legend, or legend that is part of an oral tradition that has no single, identifiable author and the fact that it has been passed down from one generation to the next. orally, it changed over time, being reshaped by each storyteller, and often changed with each within a specific generation. Thus, various versions of the same folktale exist as a result of reshaping and retelling.

Exactly how to define what is or is not a popular tale is up for debate, but stories that fall into this category usually feature very distinct, such as beginning with "There was once… ", end with "…and they all lived happily ever after". They traditionally feature fantastical elements as well as creatures such as giants, fairies, elves, and dwarfs. They are usually quite short, often taking only minutes to tell or read, and the plots often of melodramatic nature, featuring a hero and villain conflict where everything ends, good triumphs and justice is well served.

Instagram

Taken from Instagram Help Center (Instagram, 2022) it was stated that Instagram is a free photo and video sharing app available on iPhone and Android. People can upload photos or videos to our service and share them with their followers or with a selected group of friends. They can also view, comment and like posts shared by their friends on Instagram. Anyone aged 13 and over can create an account by registering an email address and selecting a username. Whereas Instagram caption is something that you place next to your post that gives context to your images and allows you to share your brand voice. Good Instagram captions make posts more memorable by telling your followers how to e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857

take action or laying the foundations for a stronger relationship. The right Instagram caption even makes your content more shareable.

Cultural Values

Cultural resources become tourist attractions through a planned process, while the interpretative process and the design of the “packaging” were created to present the brand to the public. Interpretation is the very essence or main content of one that is sold, while packaging is not merely transformation helping to promote or simplify. It is precise that stories and storytelling can become a “brand” during that process. Unless it becomes a brand, heritage does not interest tourists. If designed and interpreted correctly, traditional heritage becomes a realistic tourist attraction and a reason for tourists to travel. This is why the experience must not only be one of entertainment, but it must also intrigue us with enigma, convey a message to us and offer us. The total experience is created only when you also include emotions (Alic, 2020).

Promotion

Philip Kotler (2000) defines promotion as an activity carried out by companies to communicate the benefits of their products and to convince consumers to buy. Cummins (1991) defines promotion as a set of techniques used to achieve sales or marketing goals in a cost-effective manner, by providing added value to products or services either to intermediaries or direct users. It is usually not limited to a certain period of time. These things can be achieved by using promotional tools.

Moreover, Shimp, et al. (2004) elaborates promotion has functions such as: Informing (providing information), Persuading (persuade), Reminding (reminder), and Adding Value (adding value). Eventually, this research aimed to analyze the

prominent cultural values of the famous tourism folktale spot in Indonesia.

METHODS

This research employed Qualitative approach through content analysis studies. Mohajan (2018) argues that research Qualitative is one form of action social media that emphasizes how to interpret and understand experience as a way of understanding the social reality of the individual. Neuman, et al. (2014) explains that researchers in the study of content analysis, doing collection and analysis of text content. As for researchable content consists of words, meaning, image, symbol, idea, theme, or message communicated. Therefore, this research will use textual analysis and will look at the cultural values through Instagram post and their captions which related to folktale of tourism spot.

There are four dimensions of culture based on “Four senses of Culture” by Adaskou, Britten, and Fahsi (Adaskou, Britten, & Fahsi, 1990). The first dimension is called the aesthetic sense; the second is a sociological sense, the third is semantic sense, which refers to the conceptualized system that is Incorporated in the language and the last is pragmatic sense. The last is sociolinguistic or pragmatic sense. It covers skills in social situations, background knowledge, and paralinguistic skills.

Therefore, the identification towards the Instagram captions will be categorized through cultural aspects such as: the aesthetic sense (refers to media, cinema, music with popular or traditional genres, and literature.), the sociological sense (relates to the organization and nature of family, home life, interpersonal relations, material condition, work and leisure, customs, and finally, institutions), the semantic sense (refers to the conceptualized system that is incorporated in the language) and the

pragmatic sense (It is covering skills in social situations, background knowledge, and paralinguistic skills).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Like most other social media, Instagram is also easily accessible from smartphones and has become an existence booster among young people. Instagram is one form of the result of the advancement of the internet and is classified as one of the social media that is quite loved by today's audiences. By taking advantage of this, the opportunity to promote tourist attractions can be easier because of the large number of potential consumers who gather on Instagram social media. One of the strengths in promotion through Instagram as a business medium is to use hashtags where several features on Instagram that can be used for promotion include: Followers (Followers) and Follows (Following), Uploading Photos/Videos with Captions (Posting), In-stastory and others.

Instagram has a caption feature or captions in every photo that is posted. For tourists who visit tourist attractions with

folklore appeal, they can use their own caption feature as detailed information that can be an attraction for each post on their respective Instagram accounts. They tend to use informal language that is easy to understand and understand in their post captions. Or even retell folktale stories that happened in that place. Example is this caption used by someone who visited Malin Kun-dang tourism spot “Don’t rebel towards your mother, then you will become a stone.”

The results of findings the Instagram captions cultural values related to the folktale of tourism spots are: the IG post which has clear caption, used hashtags, and depict the clear view of the related. tourism spot folktale

In line with this, the tourism spots finding are:

  • 1.    Malin Kundang

  • 2.    Sangkuriang

  • 3.    Roro Jonggrang / Prambanan

  • 4.    Danau Toba

  • 5.    Legenda Batu Menangis

  • 6.    Legenda Kawah Sikidang

  • 7.    Garuda Wisnu Kencana



    Figure 1. Instagram Captions and Posts Related to Indonesian Folktale


Captions and photos provided based the captions. From those captions and 7 on the 7 tourism folklore spots were de-   posts it was found that: 5 captions have

scribed and used based on the photos and   aesthetic sense,3 have sociological sense, 2

semantic sense and 1 pragmatic sense.

Table 1. Analysis of Instagram folktale captions related to its cultural values

No  Tourism spot

Caption and hashtag             Cultural value

1    Malin Kundang

Don’t rebel towards your mother, then   - Aesthetic sense

you will become a stone                -Sociological sense

2    Sangkuriang

Each time I go to Tangkuban Perahu, I -Aesthetic sense always take photos at the Youth Tree.

So, I can be as pretty and as youthful as Dayang Sumbi, who is always beautiful even though she ages”.

3   Prambanan

The Cursed Princess: Roro Jonggrang.   -Aesthetic sense

Is a folktale figure from Central Java   -Pragmatic sense

who is famous for her request to make 1000 temples in 1 night for a man who wants to propose to her. However, when 999 temples had been built and 1 statue was missing to complete the temple,  Roro  stopped  Bandung

Bondowoso's efforts not to propose to her, which finally made Bandung angry and cursed Roro Jonggrang to be the 1000th temple statue. Now the temple is one of the grandest Buddhist temples. 2nd in Indonesia.

4   Danau Toba

I thought we were sour and salt, appar-    -Semantic sense

ently, we are water and oil”

5    Legenda batu

menangis

A spoli diva daughter love being lazy   - Aesthetic sense

and admiring her reflection on the wa-   -Sociological sense

ter all day yet her mother worked so hard earning money for them. Wherever they go, the daughter always tells other people that her mother is a servant. As the mother can’t hold the pain anymore, she prays to God to punish her daughter. God then answer her prayer. Slowly, the girl’s leg turns into stone. The process continues to the upper part of the girls’ body. “Mother please forgive me!” she cries and asks her mother to forgive her. But it is too late. Her whole body finally becomes a big stone. Until now people still can see tears falling down the stone. People then call it the crying stone.

6   Legenda Kawah

Sikidang

In the past around this area there lived   - Aesthetic sense

a girl named Shinta Dewi. Shinta   -Sociological sense

No  Tourism spot

Caption and hashtag

Cultural value

Dewi's beauty spread throughout the area so that many young men wanted to propose to her but none of them succeeded because the beautiful girl asked for a large dowry. The beauty of this girl was heard by a rich prince named Kidang Garungan. The prince who has a human body but has the head of a deer. Prince Kidang sent envoys to deliver a large amount of dowry. This girl agreed to the proposal but was surprised to see the prince's true appearance. This girl then found a way to cancel the proposal and asked the Prince to build a water well for the surrounding community. The prince then made a well using his horn. Frustrated, Shinta asked the people to bury the Prince and ended up being buried alive in a well he dug himself. That anger formed the Sikidang crater.

7    Garuda Wisnu

Kencana

Good afternoon, view the GWK Bali statue from the German Beach area of Tuban Bali. Hopefully Bali tourism will recover

-Semantic sense

Based on the four sense of culture framework proposed by Adaskou, Britten and Fahsi (1990), the culture is categorized into four senses: the aesthetic sense, the sociological sense, the semantic sense, and the pragmatic sense.

The aesthetic sense of culture refers to the media, the cinema, music, and above all literature-research. This is the most used in the instagram caption that were used because findings based on the hashtag or #. It was found that posts captioning hashtag related to the tourism spots of Malin Kundang, Sangkuring, Prambanan, Legenda Batu Menangis and Legenda Kawah Sikidang. All were retelling the story or behind the story of the folktale in their caption Instagram posts. These captions clearly explain the folktale in their posts along with the picture or illustration of the folktale.

Whereas the sociological sense of culture refers to the organization and

nature of family, home life, of interpersonal relations, material conditions, work, and leisure, custom, and institutions. Sociological sense basically explaining about family and family ties, these culture sense can be found in the instagram caption content of Malin Kundang, Legenda Batu Menangis, and Legenda Kawah Sikidang because these folktales explaining about family ties and family relationship.

Whereas the semantic sense of culture refers to the conceptual system embodied in the language and conditioning all our perceptions and our thought process. This culture sense is found in Instagram post captioning Garuda Wisnu Kencana. Because this tourism spot is located near the beach therefore for semantic sense the user captioning the post with post about beach and how the tourism spot is near the beach. The last, is the pragmatic sense refers to the background knowledge, social skills, and paralinguistic skills that, in e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857

addition to mastery of the language code, make possible successful communication. In this instagram caption post from Pram-banan where the user is explaining the story of Prambanan and especially the lack of communication between Roro and Bandung Bondowoso hence the pragmatic cultural sense is found on this caption.

Therefore, based on the cultural sense, it is found 71.42% aesthetic culture sense, 42.85% sociological culture sense, 28.57% semantic culture sense, and last 14.28% pragmatic culture sense. From these findings, we can conclude that aesthetic sense is the most frequently used in describing the tourist spot and also for using Instagram captions. From the Instagram caption aesthetic sense related and how its correlated to the promotion of the place stated by Kotler (Kotler, 2000) it can be depicted that:

  • a)    Informing (providing information)

For informing, Instagram is a great and easy place to do so. For tourists who went there and put captions and photos and even illustration to explain and informing to others on how the place looks like.

  • b)    Persuading (persuade)

For other form of promotion, Instagram caption to tourism related spot can persuade others to visit the place as well. c) Reminding (reminder)

Whereas in reminding, this can be one way during Pandemic. Instagram captions posts serve as reminder for people when certain tourism spots are already open for public and such.

d) Adding Value (adding value)

In promoting part for adding value, Parsi (Parsi, 2021) stated that 48% of people choose their destination based on what they see on Instagram and 35% of them discover new places to visit from Instagram. Therefore, the more tourism folklore related posts and its caption seen by people, the more people will come to the tourism spot as well.

CONCLUSION

Folktales and folklore continue to captivate society and remain a popular subject. This is evident through the growth of tourist spots inspired by folktales, although they may not be as well-known as other "instagrammable" locations. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Instagram remains a widely used social media platform, particularly in Indonesia. It can serve as a powerful promotional tool for folklore-related tourist destinations, as it allows users to share captivating visuals, thought-provoking captions, and relevant hashtags, thereby enticing more visitors to explore these places.

The study emphasizes the significance of cultural values and content in folktales when promoting tourism spots through Instagram. To create effective posts, clear and appealing photos should be accompanied by well-written captions that relate to the content. Captions can range from summarizing the folktale or folklore to storytelling, while including interesting hashtags to enhance post visibility. Furthermore, in order to further enhance promotion, Instagram users can explore creative methods such as incorporating additional stories and music into their posts.

Overall, Instagram offers a valuable platform for promoting tourism, and when combined with cultural sensibilities and creative approaches, it can significantly boost the visibility and appeal of folklore-related tourist destinations

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The writers would like to express their gratitude to IKIP Siliwangi for providing the necessary facilities and to people who create the Instagram caption using Indonesian folktales that providing the necessary resources, eventually enables the effective completion of this research.

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