The role of media in the Arab revolutions: the case of Syria / Bachar Bakour

Whether in the time of war or peace, media, considered the ‘Fourth Authority’, must struggle to present the truth to the public, making no concession to any kind of authority, whether legislative, executive or judicial. This study, which adopts descriptive-analytical method, gives a brief account of the 2011 Arab popular revolts with reference to the media's significant role in war/conflict. Then, it investigates the manipulative role played by the official and semi-official visual media during the first six months of the Syrian Revolution. As a tool in the hand of the regime, these media outlets worked on propagating the regime’s adopted narrative. This narrative depicts the non-violent protestors as terrorist gangs, and conspirators supported by foreign imperial powers. The media’s manipulative role in the presentation of events and dissemination of information falls under the following categories: misrepresenting reports; the blame game; defaming the opponent; manipulating religious discourse and polishing the image of the regime. Examples are furnished for each category. Finally, the study calls for the core values of ethical media from the Islamic perspective, providing a blueprint for those who aspire to engage in the public information sphere and to ensure reliability and credibility in their profession

A conceptual model of online hotel booking: the role of online review and online trust towards online booking intention / Fadhlina Mahat... [ et al.]

A growing reliance on the Internet as an information source when making choices about hotel booking raises the need for more research into this issue. Within online hotel booking context, this study aims to investigate the influence of online review and online trust towards online booking intention. Furthermore, the mediating role of online trust will also have been examined. Based on review of past literature, six dimensions of online review construct are proposed namely, usefulness, reviewer expertise, timeliness, volume, valence and comprehension as predictors. The proposed model is supported by Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model developed by Mehrabian and Rusell (1974). In the present study, online review is conceptualized as a second order construct. It is predicted that online review has positive effect on both online trust and online booking intention. Besides, online trust is predicted to has a positive effect on online booking intention. Finally, it is expected that the online trust mediates the relationship between online review and online booking intention. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by examining the role of online trust as mediator

International tourists’ acceptance of Malaysian heritage food choices / Noraini Rahim... [et al.]

Malaysia is not only known as a multi-cultural country, but it is also known for its specialized heritage where tourists can find varied food from different cultures in Malaysia. Given that Malaysia is home to several ethnic groups stemming from roots in the colonial period in which hundreds and thousands of immigrants who migrated to what was Malaya before, in search of an honest living in a prosperous country. Food heritage is a term that encompasses the origin of plants and animals, and their dispersal at sites where people first cultivated domesticated plants and animals, and the first places where people first treated, prepared, sold and ate that food. This study was conducted to investigate the acceptance of international tourists towards Malaysian heritage food choices from the different ethnicities of Malay, Chinese and Indian, who represent the largest ethnic groups in Malaysia. Comparing these results is useful because it can provide an initial picture of tourist acceptance. The results of the study may be used to promote the choices of heritage food as an addition to other tourism products as a catalyst to generate business and stimulate the local economy

The important of typography in publication / Nur Eirza Khairunnisa Mohd Rezan

Typography plays an integral part in design and publication. In the modern era. the audience is aware of typography. design and others. Typography is used as a more extensive conversation to global visual culture, and the audience starts to increasingly aware of the effects of visual design. Typography is used as letter design in print or digital media. Also bring definition to giving text form and its sense of wonder, (Danielle, 2014). The unique font would add character and relate to the body text, and the reader may notice the typeface faster. Typography is often used to attract the reader. Usually. the reader is quickly drawn to something new, unique and not commonly seen. The typeface was category under typography. There is a different type of typeface and typeface gives a fresh font and a new look. In education publication, typography is essential to attract the reader to continue reading and also grab reader attention so that the reader will not be bored. Typography is essential to keep the reader being interested in learning education publication. There are six different typeface sorting, that is a serif, San-serif - mono spaced, cursive, fantasy, and script. The most commonly used is serif and San-serif. Education publication can be more interested in having an exciting info graphic and fonts (Nathan, 2014

Factors affecting stress among UiTM Kampus Bandaraya Melaka students / Nur Aqilah Mastor

The main purpose of conducting this study is to examine the relationship between financial factor, relationship factor, academic factor and stress among UiTM Kampus Bandaraya, Melaka students. Total population for students of Human Resources Management in UiTM Kampus Bandaraya, Melaka is 475 students. Hence, a sample size consists of 200 students to distribute questionnaires. Convenience method has been used as sampling technique for the study. Questionnaire is the tool used by researcher to collect the data for this research. Data has been analysed through Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). The Frequency Analysis, Reliability Analysis, Descriptive Statistics, Correlation and Multiple Regression analysis has been applied to identify the result of the study. The findings of this study have shown that there is a relationship between the financial factor, the relationship factor and the academic stress factor. Result of this study is helpful for students and academician of UiTM Kampus Bandaraya Melaka, so that they can get the better understanding about the relationship exist between financial factor, relationship factor, academic factor and stress as they can learn more on how to reduce their stress while study at universities

Quality of qovernance and tax revenue generation in West Africa: a political process theory perspective / Fatimoh Mohammed and Soliha Sanusi.

This article examined governance quality indicators such as control of corruption, political stability, voice and accountability and GDP per capita growth on tax revenue generation. This study conducted a panel analysis on all the variables from 15 West African countries between 2009 -2018. The pull result indicated significant and positive relationship with control of corruption, political stability and tax revenue generation. Regulatory quality typified a negative and insignificant relationship; depicting the weak nature of regulatory structures towards revenue mobilization in the West African region. This study suggests digitalization of the tax system, formidable regional economic integration against illicit outflows and improvement of governance culture in order to drive tax compliance and revenue mobilization. Future research should consider the relationship between tax revenue generation and variables such as tax payers’ confidence and tax system digitalization

Emergency injury treatment for UiTM student by using courseware / Masita Zainon

Emergency Injury Treatment (EIT) courseware is a multimedia application which is designed to provide the student the knowledge of the treatment. This courseware is a platform awareness of injury treatment towards student. Recent based on survey to 46 student shows that most student do not have knowledge of the injury treatment. This happen due to many contributing factors. One of them, not aware to the earth surface when walking. The objectives of proposed project are to develop the student treatment knowledge using multimedia element in the courseware. Secondly is to evaluate the heuristic evaluation for the expert and effectiveness of application whether UiTM student can treat the injury through question. This courseware will be focused on basic injury treatment that is targeted to the student that age 18 to 25 years old. The content for the proposed project has been done surrounding district of UiTM Arau, Perlis. The project has been published or install on standalone computer. The methodology that used is ADDIE Model. ADDIE Model consists of five stages which are analysis phase, design phase, development phase, implementation phase and evaluate phase. The result based on pre-test and post-test was done to evaluate the percentage of the student’s improvement in remembering the basic injury and treatment before and after using the application. The software that used to developed this multimedia application courseware include Adobe Flash Professional CS6, Adobe Photoshop and Wondershare Filmora. The result will produce an attractive multimedia courseware of emergency injury treatment for student. They perform worse on remembering the name of injury and the injuries area. Through this courseware, the student will be able to know the injury symptom and injury name without depend refer the website

Serving the medical tourists in Malaysia: are local patients being put the second? / Norzayana Yusof and Herwina Rosnan.

Despite the concern that local patients are being put the second, this article attempts to prove the otherwise. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with a government division, medical doctors, and private hospitals serving medical tourists. Through Atlas.ti version 8, it is found that locals are still the primary focus as medical tourists only take about 10%, on average, of the total patients in these hospitals. Further, hospitals only went aggressive in medical tourism after their capacity expansion. This research suggests for the policy-makers to take the necessary actions in developing medical tourism industry while simultaneously catering for the locals’ needs

Countering terrorism through religion, culture, legal and ethical values / Mokhtar Muhammad and Haliza Hasan

Terrorism has been widely used as a tool by extremist to achieve their political, religious, and ideological agendas. The most worrying issue about terrorism is that innocent civilians are targeted, and they are considered as soft targets. Terrorists consider themselves above the law and normally do not work within the legal and ethical frame of the common army. The mass destruction committed by terrorists is also monstrous in comparison to normal criminals, usually the cause of a huge number of deaths and devastation of properties. Religion is typically used as a motivation for terrorism act where ignorant people are deceived to commit acts of terrorism in the name of religion. This is done by cunning designed doctrines which are used to instigate the perpetrators. Therefore, a better counter-narrative to overcome such doctrines. The use of legal means has proven worldwide to be one of the most effective ways to overcome terrorism. The inculcation of ethics is also important as ethics were throughout history, observed, even in the worse of wars. It is imperatives that all parties of conflicts to observe ethics despite their differences. A culture might easily be influenced by extremist ideas if left unchecked, thus leading to the flourishing of radical ideas. The best solution is for all these elements to synergize to create a concerted effort to combat terrorism

Effects of human resource practices towards employee retention among Sharp Manufacturing Corporation (M) Sdn. Bhd. permanent administrative staffs / Liyana Ayu Abdul Wahid

The purpose of this research is to study the effects of Human Resource practices towards employee retention among Sharp Manufacturing Corporation (M) Sdn. Bhd (SMM) permanent administrative staffs. This research is to examine the relationship between independent variables (recruitment and selection, training and career development, performance appraisal and compensation and benefits) and dependent variable (employee retention). The questionnaires were distributed traditionally to the respondents which is permanent administrative staffs at SMM by using simple random sampling technique. The Statistical Package for Social Science Version 22 (SPSS V22) was employed to analyses the data and obtain answers for the research questions. To answer the research questions, the researcher conducted few analyses namely; Reliability Analysis, Descriptive Statistic Analysis, Frequency Distribution Analysis, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis. The data analysis is obtained in order to meet the objective of the study which is to determine the relationship between recruitment and selection, training and career development, performance appraisal and compensation and benefits with employee retention. This study also identifies the most impactful factor that influences employee retention in manufacturing industry and result from this study shows the most impactful factor towards employee retention is compensation and benefits. Therefore, the organizations need to give full commitment to ensure compensation and benefits offered able to retain employees in the organization. Lastly, the researcher hopes that this study will help the organization to gain competitive advantage positions in the industry by retain their valuable employee in the organization