The Portrayal of the Evolution of Sri Lankan Culture in Music Videos

Abstract

The ideas, customs, and social beaviour of a particular person or a society are named as the culture. It can be clearly seen that culture and the society are strongly connected with each other. When discussing about a country, culture is considered as a measurement of the identity of the particular country. Art is a part of the culture that adds uniqueness to a country's identity. In this research paper the author tries to portray the evolution of Sri Lankan culture by using one of artistic methods, which is music videos. Creating a video for the songs are now considered as a trend in Sri Lankan music industry, mainly to attract the audience. Sri Lankan music videos are a medium of communication which transmits messages to the society. Moreover, it plays a major role in the lives of people as it is a sub-form of entertainment. In this research study, the author discusses about the portrayal of the marriage and also the change of the clothing of Sri Lankans through music Videos. Furthermore, the author chose music videos of two generations to depict the difference of the aforementioned cultural aspects in time to time. Culturally different music videos from the eighteenth century and the twenty first century are selected to investigate the research problem "how effectively the evolution of culture is portrayed in the Sri Lankan music videos ". Two music videos which depict marriage and the way of clothing are selected from each of the mentioned two generations as research resources. The comparative analysis of data in the research affirms that music videos are important in portraying the culture of a country and shows its visible changing nature from a generation to a generation. Furthermore, this research study manages to discuss how these music videos can affect the way of living of people. Thus, it can be concluded that, the Sri Lankan music videos attempt to portray the cultural aspects of the country to the world.