High School Students’ Interpretations of Bullying Themes in Gareth Emery’s Saving Light Music Video: A Reader Response Study

Adelia Putri; Susanto

doi:10.55909/jpbs.v5i4.1520

Authors

Adelia Putri Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Pekalongan, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia
Susanto Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Pekalongan, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55909/jpbs.v5i4.1520

Keywords:

students’ interpretations, bullying themes, music video, reader response study

Abstract

This study aims to investigate how high school EFL students interpret bullying representation and construct reflective and future-oriented expectations through Gareth Emery’s Saving Light music video as a multimodal text by integrating Reader-Response Theory and Hope Theory. The study was conducted at MAN 1 Kota Pekalongan during the 2025/2026 academic year. The participants consisted of 32 eleventh-grade students, with 8 selected participants involved in semi-structured interviews. The instruments used were open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis based on Braun and Clarke’s framework. The findings reveal that students interpreted bullying as emotional and social violence represented through symbolic visual narration. The music video encouraged empathy, personal reflection, and critical responses shaped by students’ prior experiences. Furthermore, students expressed future-oriented expectations regarding counseling support, teacher involvement, anti-bullying education, and safer classroom environments. These findings suggest that multimodal media texts may support reflective learning, critical media literacy, and student-centered meaning construction in EFL classrooms.

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