The Involvement of State Gov- ernment, Agencies and Local Authority Policies on the Conser- vation of Heritage Spots in Malaysia

This paper is analyzes the local policy implementation by the state authorities at two historical cities, namely Melaka (Malacca) and George Town, Penang. Both cities are awarded as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Or- ganization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites. One of the most prominent compo- nent of tangible cultural heritage is historic buildings. Thus, it is essential to ensure the sustainability of those buildings so that they will keep attracting more domestic and international travelers. Lack of awareness from the local residents is one main issue arises due to some policies imposed by the local government concerning the historic buildings. This paper is based on previous literature and from findings of a study. The findings were obtained from content analysis of local daily bilingual print newspapers namely The Star and Berita Harian (BH) on the portrayal of cultural heritage in Malaysia. The result of this paper would sheds some light, especially on the conservation of historical buildings to both historical cities through the role of the state government and agencies in imple- menting and enforcing the formulated policies

Cultural heritage in Malaysia: a critical discourse analysis of local newspaper

Cultural heritage is one of the prominent components in contributing towards the development of the country's tourism sector. Although research on World Heritage Site at the international level had started in the year 1945, instead in Malaysia, it only began around the 1980s. While still being relatively new, only a few studies have been conducted on conservation in the country, especially within the world heritage sites. The current study emphasizes on the tangible heritage vis-à-vis historic buildings, and with their connecting issue on the conservation matter within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage sites in the country. This study sets out to further explore the issue of historic buildings conservation in two historical cities of Melaka and George Town through the portrayal (consisting of text and image) of local newspapers (in bilingual), which are The Star and Berita Harian (BH). The study employs the approaches of content analysis and visual semiotic to examine both newspapers. A total of 503 articles (137 from The Star and 366 from BH) are obtained by utilization of the keywords. Based on the findings, the coverage of The Star was via both text and image specifically on the historic buildings conservation to both historical cities and in contrary, for BH thus, it just merely portrays on the text only. The result also shows that both newspapers emphasized more on intangible rather than tangible and natural heritage. Both newspapers indeed acknowledged the importance of conservation matter. Therefore it is pivotal to have a balance portrayal between the text and image. This research contributes significantly to the further development of visual communication on cultural heritage preservation in the country