CHANNEL-SPECIFIC MEDIA INFLUENCE ON HIJAB ADOPTION AMONG PAKISTANI WOMEN: A VARIANCE-PARTITIONING AND EFFECT-SIZE REANALYSIS OF DIGITAL, ELECTRONIC, PRINT, AND CELEBRITY-ENDORSEMENT PATHWAYS

Abstract

Background. The global modest-fashion economy has grown into a market valued in the hundreds of billions of US dollars, and digital platforms have repositioned the hijab from a strictly devotional garment to a mediated fashion object. Yet the relative weight of distinct media channels in shaping women’s hijab-adoption decisions remains under-quantified, particularly in South Asian Muslim-majority settings. Objective. This study disentangles the unique and shared contributions of four media channels digital, electronic, print, and celebrity endorsement to hijab adoption among urban Pakistani women. Method. Survey data from 199 women (five-point Likert instrument; 11 items; Cronbach’s α = .84) were analysed with multiple linear regression. The reported model was extended using 95% confidence intervals, semipartial correlations, a commonality (unique-versus-shared) variance decomposition, Cohen’s f² effect sizes, ω², and post hoc statistical power. Results. The four channels jointly explained 33.7% of the variance in hijab adoption, F(4, 194) = 24.65, p < .001 (95% CI for R² [.22, .42]; f² = 0.51, a large effect). Celebrity endorsement was the only statistically significant predictor (β = .392, p < .001) and accounted for 11.3% unique variance roughly 82% of all uniquely attributable variance and a medium-to-large individual effect (f² = 0.17). Digital media was marginal (β = .130, p = .070), while print and electronic media were non-significant. A substantial shared-variance component (≈20 percentage points of R²) indicated that the channels overlap heavily in their influence. Post hoc power for the three weaker predictors was low (.22–.45), implying that their non-significance is partly an artefact of limited sensitivity. Conclusion. Persuasion that is personified through credible, aspirational endorsers outperforms channel exposure per se. Findings refine source-credibility and social-cognitive accounts of religious-dress diffusion and offer actionable guidance for modest-fashion marketers, faith communicators, and media-literacy policy in Pakistan.