Malays online news and public opinion: a study of issues during the Semenyih by-election

Mat Yakim, Muhamad and Abdul Manan, Kamaruzzaman and Mohamed, Shafizan (2019) Malays online news and public opinion: a study of issues during the Semenyih by-election. In: 3rd International Conference on Media Studies 2019 (ICMS19), 3rd – 6th July 2019, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabaht University (BSRU), Bangkok, Thailand. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Media can play an important role in the public's voting decision. Despite that, it is unknown whether the issues highlight by media agenda counterpart the issues of the public. Semenyih by-elections resulted in a second victory for Barisan Nasional. The factor that made the election a very interesting one was that the new government which was covered by various issues such as the recent loss of Cameron Highlands, the effectiveness of the new government's Pakatan Harapan (PH) and the strength of Barisan Nasional-PAS cooperation gave a big challenge to PH government to face in the Semenyih by-election. The majority of the voters are Malays, thus this will determine the strength of support in Malay society after GE14. In Malaysia, Facebook is the most popular social media that been used in political communication. This paper investigates whether news online such as Facebook set the agenda for its readers. In response to the importance of social networking sites as sources of information, news media organizations have set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links to articles. This allows for a wider news reach as well as audience participation. When audience members read and subsequently comment on news articles on Facebook, it becomes possible to identify public opinions and sentiments on the issues being covered. Content analysis was used to analyse 398 issues that been highlighted by two Malays online news facebook page namely Malaysiakini BM and Sinar Harian during Semenyih by-election. Moreover, a total of 691 public responds from the issues been sampled to investigate whether user comments mirror the issues and sentiments presented in the news articles. The findings showed that news sentiments and audience sentiments did not necessarily have a clear relationship.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Slide Presentation)
Additional Information:	8220/73660
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Facebook; Election; Malaysia; Politics; Public opinion, Agenda setting; News
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) > H61.8 Communication of information J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia > JQ715 Politics and Government in Malaysia P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics > P87 Communication. Mass media
Kulliyyahs/Centres/Divisions/Institutes (Can select more than one option. Press CONTROL button):	Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences > Department of Communication
Depositing User:	Dr Kamaruzzaman Abdul Manan
Date Deposited:	13 Sep 2019 09:49
Last Modified:	13 Sep 2019 09:49
URI:	http://irep.iium.edu.my/id/eprint/73660

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