Internship after Covid-19 Pandemic: An In-Depth Interview among Journalism Program Interns of a Malaysian Public Higher Learning Institution

This paper intends to explore the challenges encountered by journalism undergraduates while undergoing their internship after the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted students’ learning; thus, causing concern about their performance when undergoing industrial training. Poor performance by students during industrial training can create a negative perception among industry players toward a university. The study aimed to achieve in-depth interview sessions with a small group of final-year journalism program students at a public university in Malaysia who underwent a 14-week internship at various Malaysian companies after a series of nationwide lockdowns spanning almost 2 years. The findings of this research hopefully will provide rich insights into internship experiences, especially regarding the challenges faced by the students, which in turn will benefit the stakeholders, including the students, employers and educational institutions. Keywords: journalism, internship, industrial training, students’ experience, post-Covid- 19 1

Muslim-Friendly Hotel in Malaysia: Examining Muslim Tourists' Satisfaction

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to identify the level of tourist’s satisfaction in a Muslim friendly hotel. Methods/Design/approach: A total of 168 respondents of tourists who had experienced a stay in Muslim friendly hotel participated in this research. The data were analyzed by using IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26 through descriptive analysis. Findings: The findings of the study revealed that the majority of tourist satisfaction with all the attributes of Muslim friendly hotel. Above all the prayer room that clean and comfortable have a high value of mean for this variable. Implication: For the Muslim friendly hotel, they can know a specific attribute that led to the satisfaction of tourist. Hence, the hotel provider especially can improve their product to a better quality in order to boost the number of customers in their hotel. On Purpose: The aim of this paper is to identify the level of tourist’s satisfaction in a Muslim friendly hotel. Methods/Design/approach: A total of 168 respondents of tourists who had experienced a stay in Muslim friendly hotel participated in this research. The data were analyzed by using IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26 through descriptive analysis. Findings: The findings of the study revealed that the majority of tourist satisfaction with all the attributes of Muslim friendly hotel. Above all the prayer room that clean and comfortable have a high value of mean for this variable. Implication: For the Muslim friendly hotel, they can know a specific attribute that led to the satisfaction of tourist. Hence, the hotel provider especially can improve their product to a better quality in order to boost the number of customers in their hotel. On the other hand, they can add some elements that can make the hotel become more attractive and interesting that can attract the customers to come and stay

Be Real, Do Not Be Fake: A Pilot Study on Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia Students' Fake News Literacy

If nothing is accomplished to stop it, the virality of fake news on social media will continue to grow and become more damaging, particularly among young people. Recognizing false information and verifying sources has become increasingly important as people rely on the Internet and social media for their news. The primary objective of this study is to assess the level of understanding of fake news media literacy among university students. Forty-three Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia students enrolled in the New Media Communication program were polled for this research. This study uses descriptive statistics to analyze the data collected via Google Forms—the results of examining the data generated immediately through a Google form. Young people read the news online but still have limited media literacy when assessing the truth of information. Research suggests that false statement is commonly discovered because young people do not carefully examine online news. Researchers conduct in-depth interviews and studies with this demographic to better understand how young people process information and evaluate its veracity. This research adds to the expanding body of knowledge on student use of social media in Malaysia, especially on how students get their news in light of the results of this pilot study, the main research project will consist of in-depth interviews with students to understand more about their perspectives on how to identify and differentiate between real and fake news

“Beer is Haram!” Representation of Islam by Online Newspapers in Malaysia on the issue of better Beer festival & oktoberfest

The representation of Islam in the media has been widely discussed by media scholars. In the Malaysian context, Islam is frequently associated with conflicts resulting from political issues or actions taken by religious authorities against any organisation or individual that sparks public debate. The government is also alleged to use Islam as a hegemonic tool to continue dominating the mindset of the lower class by using religion as a political weapon to gain power and maintain the status quo. Newspapers especially those owned by the government have certain ideologies to convey to the general public in order to maintain a specific existing social order. This causes the controversial issues pertaining to Islam to be frequently discussed in the news media in tandem with the vested interest of those owning the newspapers. However, the discourse on issues involving Islam has become more daring after the emergence of digital news portals that enable hegemonic counterarguments to be discussed widely among members in the mentioned medium. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how Islam and Muslims are represented in online newspapers in Malaysia. Two samples from English-language online newspapers, namely The Star Online and Malaysiakini, were selected. By using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, the findings of this study show that Islam, Islamic political parties, and some Muslims in Malaysia have been represented as extremists and backwards by online newspapers

ISARIC-COVID-19 dataset: A Prospective, Standardized, Global Dataset of Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19

The International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) COVID-19 dataset is one of the largest international databases of prospectively collected clinical data on people hospitalized with COVID-19. This dataset was compiled during the COVID-19 pandemic by a network of hospitals that collect data using the ISARIC-World Health Organization Clinical Characterization Protocol and data tools. The database includes data from more than 705,000 patients, collected in more than 60 countries and 1,500 centres worldwide. Patient data are available from acute hospital admissions with COVID-19 and outpatient follow-ups. The data include signs and symptoms, pre-existing comorbidities, vital signs, chronic and acute treatments, complications, dates of hospitalization and discharge, mortality, viral strains, vaccination status, and other data. Here, we present the dataset characteristics, explain its architecture and how to gain access, and provide tools to facilitate its use

Characteristics and outcomes of an international cohort of 600 000 hospitalized patients with COVID-19

Background: We describe demographic features, treatments and clinical outcomes in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) COVID-19 cohort, one of the world's largest international, standardized data sets concerning hospitalized patients. Methods: The data set analysed includes COVID-19 patients hospitalized between January 2020 and January 2022 in 52 countries. We investigated how symptoms on admission, co-morbidities, risk factors and treatments varied by age, sex and other characteristics. We used Cox regression models to investigate associations between demographics, symptoms, co-morbidities and other factors with risk of death, admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) and invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). Results: Data were available for 689 572 patients with laboratory-confirmed (91.1%) or clinically diagnosed (8.9%) SARS-CoV-2 infection from 52 countries. Age [adjusted hazard ratio per 10 years 1.49 (95% CI 1.48, 1.49)] and male sex [1.23 (1.21, 1.24)] were associated with a higher risk of death. Rates of admission to an ICU and use of IMV increased with age up to age 60 years then dropped. Symptoms, co-morbidities and treatments varied by age and had varied associations with clinical outcomes. The case-fatality ratio varied by country partly due to differences in the clinical characteristics of recruited patients and was on average 21.5%. Conclusions: Age was the strongest determinant of risk of death, with a ∼30-fold difference between the oldest and youngest groups; each of the co-morbidities included was associated with up to an almost 2-fold increase in risk. Smoking and obesity were also associated with a higher risk of death. The size of our international database and the standardized data collection method make this study a comprehensive international description of COVID-19 clinical features. Our findings may inform strategies that involve prioritization of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who have a higher risk of death

The value of open-source clinical science in pandemic response: lessons from ISARIC

International audienc