Intermedial transformation and digital commodification of the poem Kepada Noor in the digital platform economy

Poetry musicalization has traditionally been associated with literary appreciation, yet its significance has shifted as poetry increasingly circulates through digital media. When a poem is transformed into a song, its verbal material is reshaped by voice, melody, rhythm, and performance; once the resulting recording is distributed through digital platforms, the work enters new circuits of reception, audience formation, and economic value. This article examines Kepada Noor, a poem by Moh. Syarif Hidayat that has been musicalized and performed by Panji Sakti. The study investigates how the movement from written poetry to music reconfigures the experience of the poem, and how digital circulation subsequently affects the work's cultural and economic position. This study employs a qualitative case-study approach grounded in interpretive digital literary scholarship. The analysis draws on the written poem, the musicalized recording, and publicly accessible digital metadata concerning the circulation of the work across YouTube, Spotify, TikTok, and Instagram. Furthermore, to empirically validate the economic implications of digital circulation, this study incorporates primary institutional financial data regarding royalty distribution obtained from Wahana Musik Indonesia (WAMI) and the music publisher Massive Music Entertainment, providing rare access to the material-economic pathway of literary adaptation. In Kepada Noor, musicalization reshapes not only the poem's formal properties but also the manner in which its central affect—longing—is experienced. Digital circulation extends this transformation by enabling the work to be repeatedly encountered beyond conventional literary contexts, while situating it within new relations of audience attention, visibility, and potential value. The case thus suggests that alih wahana can reshape both the aesthetic experience and the cultural-economic life of a literary work in digital culture.