Digital engagement: a preliminary analysis of marginalized youth in the information society

Efforts have been made to narrow the digital divide in disadvantaged communities through increased investment in Internet infrastructure, with such initiatives particularly advanced by community-based facilities. The hope is for such investment to afford more underprivileged groups the benefits of 21st century society, where many public services are, by default, accessible online. Accordingly, this study focusses on how 15-to-25-year-old Malaysian youths in marginalised communities engage with the Internet in performing various activities in their everyday lives. The findings indicate that the majority of these individuals have access to the Internet but that their engagement spans only basic activities such as communication and uploading and downloading of materials. In terms of intermediate and advanced activities, the investigated youths minimally shop online, search for educational materials and participate in civic and political causes. The results also indicate that attitudes towards the Internet considerably influence the decision of Malaysian youth to occupy themselves with digital activities. Fostering a digitally-inclusive society necessitates expanding digital engagement beyond basic activities - a goal that can be achieved by improving the digital literacy of youth and offering them participatory literacy programmes

A rapid review of the literature on HIV-related stigmatization and discrimination studies in Malaysia

This study on HIV-related stigmatisation and discrimination was conducted to summarise key findings and identify existing research gaps in this line of research in Malaysia. A search on available online databases yielded 58 documents, but only 25 were eventually included in the review. Searching process was conducted at the end of 2013 to include all previous relevant studies up to this year but not limited to any specific starting date. Eight journal articles and one research report were empirical studies, and hence were the core documents in the analysis. The studies included were synthesised to identify common shared areas that they investigated and make an updated conclusion about the current state of knowledge on HIV-related stigma in Malaysia. Results revealed that the published works mainly focused on knowledge and attitudes toward HIV. Most studies were descriptive and correlation research. Information about self-stigmatisation is limited, while HIV campaigns in some cases instigate fears that HIV kills. HIV-related stigma still remains pervasive in Malaysia and its literature is very limited and underdeveloped. To gain a better understanding of HIV-related stigma, more theoretically driven studies with rigorous research design and method need to be done

Factor affecting online purchase behavior

The study examined the relationship between consumer personality and cultural dimensions to that of purchasing behavior through cyber advertising. Krugman’s Low Involvement theory and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions were incorporated in the study. A survey was conducted in the Subang Jaya, Puchong and Kuala Lumpur area. The sample consisted of 504 respondents drawn from a simple random sampling. Spearman Correlation Coefficients was used to analyze the data. The study showed as suggested by Krugman’s Low Involvement theory, high involvement products and attitude towards Internet contributed significantly to the purchasing behavior through cyber advertising. Thus indicating the Internet to be better suited for high involvement products and services as well as help increase the tendency to purchase products and services online. Similarly, the study also showed that the convenience dimension of the consumer personality variable formed a significant relationship with purchasing behavior through cyber advertising. Although Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions argued that cultural dimensions influences the adoption of innovations, yet results obtained from the study failed to support the theory as it was found that risk personality which represent the other dimension of the consumer personality and the cultural dimensions failed to support the hypotheses as observed in the non-significant relationships between the variables and the purchasing behavior through cyber advertising

Hate speech and LGBT media framing effects among community

The development of communication technology facilitates the users to get fast and easy information. Furthermore, with this platform all users will create and upload news content, and interested readers can get it through social media. The attainability can be seen to have either negative or positive possibilities. This study conducted took the example of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issue as the core on how negative media content display gives different effect whether to the change of attitude and behaviour of an individual. Using experimental study approach, this study will have some main objectives namely to see the hate speech display effect related to LGBT on individual. Second, compares positive or negative message or news display on change of attitude and behaviour of an individual. The analysis using descriptive analysis and Paired Sample T-Test and Analysis of Variants (ANOVA) will idenfity how far the hate speech message display effect on an individual. The findings show that positive frame gives effect compared to the negative frame on readers’ attitude and behaviour. Besides that, significant change towards the change of attitude compared to the change of behaviour

Civic participation as a precursor to political participation: a look at Malaysian youths

The problem of political apathy has been discussed and studied across time, space and cultures with increasing importance. Evidence of youth disengagement has been well documented in all parts of the world. This led to the rise in civic activities as governments struggled with wavering democracies. In a landmark study, Putnam found a direct positive association between civic participation and democracy. However, his hypothesis could only be generalized for Italy. This study broadened Putnam’s work by testing his theory in the South East Asia, a region far different from Europe. Data were collected through a national survey (N = 5,237), sampling youths aged from 15 to 25 years old. Reaffirming Putnam’s hypothesis, the study found a strong positive relationship between civic and political participation. The discussion highlighted the role of third sector organizations to promote civic activities, which require support from both public and private sectors

Digital Engagement, Political and Civic Participation

Objective: This paper examines the digital engagement, political and civic participation among Malaysian youth in marginalized communities.  It also studies the relationship between digital engagement and two participation constructs. The framework of the study was based on mobilization theories, which suggested that previously unavailable technologies such as the Internet could mobilize members of underprivileged or underrepresented groups who lack socioeconomic resources. Methodology: The data were obtained through a self-administered survey completed by 4,107 youths, aged from 15 to 25 years old, living in marginalized communities in six regions, namely Central, Eastern, Northern, Southern, Sabah, and Sarawak. Descriptive and factor analyses were used to analyze the data. Pearson correlation was also run to test the hypothesis that digital engagement is positively related to political and civic participation. Results: The study found that while youths were digitally engaged, their engagement was still characterized by basic use of the Internet, such as communicating with friends. The study also found that their civic and political participation is low. However, the research found that digital engagement had a significant and positive impact on the youths' political and civic participation. Implication: This research provides empirical data on the level of digital engagement, political and civic participation among Malaysian youths. The study expands on current literatures by examining the effects of Internet on youth participation. This paper offers insights to policy makers on implementing strategies and programs that promote participation among youth in marginalized communities. Its practical implication also includes contributing towards the development of specific policy and good practices on media to encourage youth participation in Malaysia

Islam as moderating variable between celebrity endorsement influence on attitude towards advertisements and purchase intention

Celebrity endorsement has become a common advertising strategy adopted by many companies to attain their marketing objectives. Advertisers often select endorsers as a promotional strategy to communicate the attributes of their products or services to their target audience in order to create a positive impression about the brand. Today, celebrities are endorsing various types of women attire particularly the hijab. While they were more popular in the social media yet, we are also seeing the likes of Dato Siti Nurhahiza, Yuna and Neelofa appearing on television programs donning the hijab as endorsers of various brands. Such activities were categorized as product placement and it is an increasingly popular type of advertisements. Celebrity endorser has the advantage of creating positive impression about the brand and hence creates positive attitudes towards the brand due to the likeability and trustworthiness of the endorser. With the current situation where we are seeing intimidation and assault targeting hijab-wearing women across the globe, it becomes important to focus on such study. Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine the impact of using celebrity endorsement in hijab ads on attitudes towards ads and purchase intentions. The study will also be conducted to examine the followings; i) attitude towards ads ii) attitude toward celebrity endorser iii) attitude toward brand iv) relationship between attitude toward brand and attitude toward ad vi) relationship between attitude toward celebrity endorser and purchase intention vii) relationship between religion, celebrity endorser and purchase intention. An experiment will be conducted on a sample of 200 Muslim women. They will be exposed to hijab advertisements and later will be required to answer a set of questionnaires. The Elaboration likelihood model that was developed by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo in 1986 will be applied in the study to explain the different ways hijab wearing women process the endorsement of their favourite celebrities in hijab ads, it will be interesting to examine their involvement in their decision-making process to purchase and also the importance of using Islamic cues in the advertisements

The use of lexical strategies in the discourse of Malaysian advertisements

Today, advertising is the most popular money making industry and companies would actively participate to ensure that their products or services get sold. Due to the competition in advertisements among companies, it is important that they produce effective advertisements. One of the common strategy used by advertisers are the use of lexical strategy. Thus, this study was conducted to determine the significance on the use of lexical strategies in the discourse of Malaysian advertisements and to determine the influences of lexical strategy on the advertising of beauty products in the discourse of Malaysian advertisements. The respondents for this study were students from various faculties at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) who represented different background and culture. A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed by using an online tool of GoogleForm. The questionnaire had adopted the Leech’s theory on lexical strategies that was introduced in 1966 which were divided into the study of verb phrase, noun phrase, adjective compound, morphology, weasel words and neologism. The questionnaire was made up of three different section in relation to the objectives. The application of Leech (1966) is also used to make the questions for respondents. The results for this study shows that the respondents agreed with the significant use of lexical strategy in Malaysian advertisements and had positively agreed to the fact that lexical strategy influenced Malaysian beauty standard. Such study is significant to contribute to future research and also to advertisers

An exploratory study on the relationship between involvement and attitude towards tv advertisements with Islamic symbols and purchase intent.

The exploratory study was conducted to examine the impact of involvement and attitude towards Television (TV) advertisements (ads) with Islamic symbols to that of purchase intent. Specifically the study examines i) the level of involvement towards TV ads, ii) the attitude towards TV ads, iii) the relationship between involvement towards TV ads and purchase intent, iv) the relationship between attitude towards TV ads with and purchase intent. The framework of the study was constructed based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) that suggested that the level of consumers’ involvement differ due to their processing of information. The theory also explained that sometimes the use of different cues were able to generate consumers’ high involvement in their information processing. This has thus, contributed significantly to their purchase intent. The study utilized the one group post-test only experimental methods by engaging 76 female subjects from Kuala Lumpur to participate. They were shown four advertisements that have Islamic symbols and asked to answer a set of self-administered questionnaires. The study found that the subjects showed high involvement on ads that used the Islamic symbols of “hijab” and thus have effectively generated positive attitude towards the advertisements. The results also revealed that there was a positive impact between the Islamic symbols on purchase intent

Pendedahan media terhadap iklan kanser serviks

Ujian calitan (Papanicolaou test) merupakan kaedah berkesan mengurangkan kematian disebabkan kanser serviks. Walau bagaimanapun, kekurangan pendedahan maklumat yang tepat tentang kanser serviks akan menyebabkan wanita tidak terdorong untuk menjalankan ujian calitan secara konsisten. Oleh itu, kajian ini bertujuan mengkaji tahap pendedahan terhadap iklan kanser serviks. Sejumlah 476 set borang soal selidik diedarkan di empat buah klinik kesihatan yang terpilih, iaitu Klinik Kesihatan Botanik, Klinik Kesihatan Seksyen 7 Shah Alam, Klinik Kesihatan Jenjarom dan Klinik Kesihatan Dengkil. Data yang telah dikumpulkan dianalisis dengan perisian komputer SPSS versi 22.0. Keputusan kajian menunjukkan bahawa pendedahan terhadap iklan kanser serviks dalam kalangan wanita yang pernah menjalankan ujian calitan adalah tinggi. Majoriti responden dalam kajian ini sekurang-kurangnya pernah terdedah kepada iklan kanser serviks sama ada dari media cetak, media elektronik atau media baru. Dengan adanya kesedaran terhadap kanser serviks, maka ini dapat merangsang perubahan minda dan sikap terhadap ujian calitan yang kemudiannya dapat mendorong kepada amalan menjalankan ujian calitan secara konsisten