Cabaran dan pengadaptasian warga emas dalam persekitaran jaringan digital

Kajian ini ingin memahami cabaran, peluang serta isu yang dihadapi oleh warga emas dalam persekitaran jaringan komunikasi digital masa kini. Melalui kaedah temu bual mendalam dan pemerhatian turut serta bersama warga emas di kawasan Lembah Klang, pengkaji meneroka pandangan dan pengalaman warga emas di kawasan bandar dalam mengharungi persekitaran sosial yang kini sarat dengan teknologi digital. Dapatan kajian merungkai limitasi dan halangan penggunaan teknologi serta ransangan pengadaptasian terhadap teknologi digital bagi tujuan media dan komunikasi. Kurangnya aktiviti pencarian informasi, ketidakperluan fungsi serta ketidakpercayaan dan kekeliruan persepsi merupakan antara isu yang membawa kepada berlakunya penglimitasian dan halangan penggunaan. Manakala, bagi galakan individu dan persekitaran, motivasi dan inisiatif diri serta kekerapan keterdedahan teknologi antara aspek yang memberi ransangan kepada warga emas supaya berusaha menyesuaikan diri dengan persekitaran jaringan komunkasi digital di sekeliling mereka

Government initiatives and public awareness on HIV/AIDS in Malaysia: where are we after 30 years?

HIV/AIDS has been a growing public health problem in Malaysia for over three decades. To curb the spread of HIV/AIDS and to increase public awareness regarding the disease, numerous initiatives have been developed by various stakeholders. This study is an exploratory investigation of health communication and public awareness of HIV/AIDS, based on a cross-sectional survey of 384 respondents in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The study examines public knowledge of HIV/AIDS and public perceptions of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) as well as public awareness of public initiatives. The results show that interpersonal channels are important HIV/AIDS informational sources, and that newspapers are a major mass communication or media source for HIV/AIDS information. The public is generally aware of HIV/AIDS transmission, but still harbors moderate, rather than straight-cut positive, perceptions and attitudes towards PLHIV. This shows that the National Strategic Plan on HIV/AIDS may not be fully supported by existing public initiatives

‘Network newswork’ across ‘glocal’ spaces: a study of the integration of user-driven networked sources among global and national news outlets in Malaysia

© 2012 Dr. Amira Sariyati FirdausBeyond global media reporting of natural disasters (e.g. Fukushima earthquake/tsunami); terrorist attacks (e.g. 2005 London and 2004 Madrid bombings); and political uprisings (e.g. Arab Spring) and local spot news emergencies (e.g. traffic accidents, fires), we know little regarding the journalistic integration of user-driven networked media within conventional news settings (i.e. institutional, mainstream news media). This thesis proposes ‘network newswork’ as an emerging practice of news production which allows journalism to capture the complex journalistic space which integrates user-driven networked informational sources into various stages of news production. The thesis asks: Within traditional, institutionally-driven journalistic settings, how is ‘network newswork’ integrated into routine newswork? Drawing upon a recent global-comparative turn in journalism studies, this thesis suggests a ‘glocal’ comparative approach to the research question by focusing its empirical analysis on expatriate and local journalists all based in the same ‘locality’ of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but working for news outlets that operate in distinctly different news spheres. Thus the thesis explores how globalized informational flows are used within different ‘glocal’ journalistic settings, represented by global channel Al Jazeera English with its Kuala Lumpur broadcast centre and the newsroom of Malaysian national channel Bernama TV, as well as four other ‘transnational’ outlets. Based on semi-structured interviews with journalists recruited via a chain of referrals within professional networks of journalists, study findings are structured along a ‘hierarchy of influences’ model. Across global, local and ‘glocal’ news spheres, commonalities are found in microsociological news practices. However, ideological macrosociological differences give rise to divergent rationales in journalistic evaluation of social media sources. Both commonalities and divergences across news spheres are explained by ideological-institutional and ‘professional’-journalistic-routines ‘structuration’ of individual journalists’ agency in appropriating user-driven networked media as tools of newswork. The thesis discusses the implications of ‘network newswork’ on the wider global journalistic sphere, elucidating a ‘tiered model’ of networked sources and expounding upon journalism’s deepening of the digital divide in its inadvertent ‘muting’ of the voices of non-networked communities that are ‘switched off’ from the global news sphere and its ‘network society’

Foreign Nationals as Offenders and Victims in Malaysian Crime News

Foreign nationals in Malaysia come from all corners of the world. They are here as migrant labour, highly skilled and professional migrants (expatriates), illegal migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers (Burmese asylum seekers with UNHCR card), forced migrants (human trafficking victims), students, and tourists. The influx of foreign nationals residing in Malaysia coincides with greater number of crime news featuring foreign nationals. This study explores the social construction of foreign nationals as the ‘other’ in the local crime news published by Malaysian newspapers. 94 news headlines and lead sentences of local crime news involving foreign nationals were identified and analysed for this study. Findings suggest that Malaysian newspapers magnify foreign nationals’ migration status in each crime news

Rise of the 5th estate: how online public discourse on Najib Razak’s 1MDB scandal foreshadowed Pakatan Harapan’s win in the 14th general election

Public discourse commonly takes place in public forums of free media. The 4th estate provides an external dimension to the democratic check and balance to the executive (1st estate), the legislative (2nd estate), and the judiciary (3rd estate). This paper discusses the rise of a social media 5th estate, as exemplified by online public discourse surrounding the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, and the country’s ensuing electoral change of government. Drawing upon thematic analyses of 1MDB-related comments in the official Facebook page of Free Malaysia Today, this paper illustrates the rise of a social media 5th estate in the run-up to Pakatan Harapan’s win in the Malaysian 2018 14th General Election. Since international public disclosure in 2015 of former Malaysian premier Najib Razak’s purported siphoning of billions of ringgit from 1MDB, the scandal continues to be a trending topic on Malaysian social media. The online discourse of 1MDB evolved from heated posts discussing Najib’s culpability and criticism of his Barisan Nasional administration, into support to the opposition Pakatan Harapan coalition, particularly in the run-up to the 14th Malaysian General Elections (GE14) that was held on 9th May 2018. Pakatan Harapan’s win, following the social media support, exemplifies the power of a netizen-fuelled 5th estate

Foreign Nationals as Offenders and Victims in Malaysian Crime News

Foreign nationals in Malaysia come from all corners of the world. They are here as migrant labour, highly skilled and professional migrants (expatriates), illegal migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers (Burmese asylum seekers with UNHCR card), forced migrants (human trafficking victims), students, and tourists. The influx of foreign nationals residing in Malaysia coincides with greater number of crime news featuring foreign nationals. This study explores the social construction of foreign nationals as the ‘other’ in the local crime news published by Malaysian newspapers. 94 news headlines and lead sentences of local crime news involving foreign nationals were identified and analysed for this study. Findings suggest that Malaysian newspapers magnify foreign nationals’ migration status in each crime news

Two decades of research on early career faculties (ECFs): A bibliometric analysis of trends across regions

Early Career Faculties (ECFs) are an important demographic of university faculty population shaping the future of the institution and higher education, despite the challenges they face as new academics. Analysis of scholarly output on ECFs offers useful data to inform and aid both national policy formulations and institutional planning decisions especially in ECFs' support and development. Peer-reviewed high impact journals and academic databases provide highly valid and reliable sources of data and information on ECFs. This study examines the trend of ECFs research over two decades comparing scholarly output and research impact across global regions, in Web of Science and Scopus Elsevier. The bibliometric analysis highlights key topics of research and publications related to ECFs and identify the regions and countries most actively research on the topic. The trend of research on ECFs has been found to increase exponentially beginning the 1990s worldwide, mostly from western institutions (76%). Publications after the year 2012 focused more on issues related to ECFs' preparation towards life in academia, their motivation, and challenges, the support structure for ECFs and strategies to adapt to life as faculty members. Such bibliometric analysis findings can be a useful reference for policy formulation within national or regional systems of higher education, and institutional strategic planning. © 2020 Universiti Putra Malaysia Press

University of Malaya's emerging scholars leadership advancement (Emerald) programme: Implications on new lecturers' early career development

Interest on the professional development of an academic in academia has been growing over the years (Akerlind, 2005). Research indicates that there are various academics preparation programmes preparing Early Career Faculty, i.e. young, new and novice academics, for tasks in academia. This study explores the effectiveness of one of the training programme for new lecturers - Emerging Scholars Leadership Advancement (Emerald) programme held by UM's Academic Enhancement and Leadership Development Centre (ADeC) since August 2014. It is a training programme for new academic staffs who have successfully obtained their doctorates via UM's faculty recruitment and training schemes (i.e. Skim Latihan Akademik Bumiputera (SLAB) and Skim Latihan Akademik IPTA (SLAI)). Findings were analysed from three focus group discussions with 12 Emerald participants as well as two stakeholder meetings with their deans and departmental heads. Further post-training in-depth interviews with four alumni from the programme are underway. Earlier findings suggest that although Emerald participants seemed to appreciate the learning opportunities and networking possibilities gained from Emerald, the programme was also burdensome time-wise, and somewhat irrelevant to their daily duties as new faculty. Relevance of some of the programme's components to the daily duties as new faculty were questioned. In addition, the programme's lack of gains in terms of contributing to their efforts toward tenure was also highlighted. It is therefore vital to examine the ECF's reception of the programme, and its perceived benefits and drawbacks in providing relevant training for new lecturers in the early months of their academic career. These findings provide basis for ongoing revisions to the programme, wherein teaching and learning, supervision, and research training modules were reviewed and amended. In addition, changes were made to the programme briefing session as well as its practical attachments modules. Most importantly, the Emerald programme structure underwent modifications cut the programme duration from 60 days to approximately 20 days with training that focused on the core duties of new lecturers. This study contributes to existing efforts to improve the training of ECF by chronicling the development and subsequent ongoing enhancements of the ECF training programme at Malaysia's leading public university