The Transformation of Character Education in Digital Children’s Literature

Abstract

The digital world has permeated various fields, one of which is children’s literature. Digitalization in children’s literature has transformed textual narratives into multimodal literary experiences that integrate images, text, audio, video, and various digital features. This study aims to analyze the transformation of character education in digital children’s literature using a descriptive qualitative approach. The data in this study consist of ten digital children’s stories on the BUDI (Indonesian Digital Books) platform of the Ministry of Education and Culture, comprising digital stories, videos, audio, and digital comics. The findings reveal three forms of transformation in digital children’s literature. First, the instillation of character education has shifted from a dominance of verbal narratives toward multimodal representations that integrate visual, auditory, and textual elements. Second, the instillation of character education has shifted from the explicit delivery of moral messages to moral experiences that engage the reader’s emotional aspects. Third, digital children’s literature transforms the reader’s passive role as a recipient of character values into that of an active, multimodal meaning-maker. The results of this study indicate that the digitization process does not alter the educational function and didactic value of children’s literature. However, digitization does change the pedagogical mechanisms for constructing and internalizing character education values among young readers. Thus, digital children’s literature holds strategic potential as a medium for character education relevant to the literacy practices of the digital generation.