The effects of pictures on the order of accessing online war stories

Research on how people read news stories has shown that readers chose to read and access news stories associated with pictures that contained an element of attraction. Researchers have found that the emotional elements within the picture could also play a role. It is unclear how neutral human interest pictures influence readers to access news stories. Is the access process influenced by less emotive pictures or more human interest elements? These issues were explored in an experiment in which 24 students participated. The experiment compared similar news that was accompanied with a human interest picture, information graphic and without information graphic. The focus of the news stories was on war news which almost always contained human interest elements that could be neutral or emotion-laden. The experiment suggested that human interest pictures of war stories could be equally effective in attracting readers to read and remember the news stories

Pembingkaian visual berita krisis Lahad Datu

Visual memainkan peranan penting dalam memberi gambaran yang jelas tentang sesuatu kejadian kepada khalayak. Visual boleh dianggap sebagai alat komunikasi yang berkuasa untuk mencetuskan tindakbalas emosi yang tinggi dan boleh diingati berbanding perkataan semata-mata. Penggunaan visual dalam pelaporan sesuatu berita krisis berupaya membantu khalayak untuk lebih memahami sesuatu peristiwa yang berlaku. Artikel ini bertujuan mengenal pasti pembingkaian visual dalam liputan berita krisis Lahad Datu yang disiarkan dalam akhbar Utusan Malaysia dan Berita Harian. Kaedah analisis kandungan digunakan untuk menganalisis visual yang dipaparkan dalam kedua-dua akhbar dalam tempoh masa 20 hari iaitu bermula 1 hingga 20 Mac 2013. Kajian ini menggunakan model pembingkaian visual yang dipelopori oleh Rodriguez dan Dimitrova (2011) yang mencadangkan model empat tahap bingkai visual iaitu pertama, visual sebagai sistem denotatif; kedua, visual sebagai sistem semiotik-stilistik; ketiga, visual sebagai sistem konotatif; dan visual sebagai perwakilan ideologi. Sistem ini boleh diaplikasikan untuk menganalisis sebarang jenis kandungan visual media atau persepsi khalayak terhadap kandungan tersebut. Hasil kajian mendapati kedua-dua akhbar Utusan Malaysia dan Berita Harian menggunakan sistem denotatif dalam melaporkan visual tentang berita krisis Lahad Datu ini. Dua bingkai utama yang ditonjolkan adalah bingkai politik dan kemanusiaan manakala bingkai pemimpin mendominasi liputan visual dalam konteks berita krisis ini. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan bahawa kedua-dua akhbar turut menggunakan sumber visual dari agensi antarabangsa seperti Associated Press (AP), AFP dan Reuters

Akhbar versi digital: implikasi terhadap trend sirkulasi akhbar bercetak di Malaysia

Kemerosotan jualan akhbar bercetak yang berlaku sejak tahun 2013 telah membangkitkan persoalan tentang hala tuju industri penerbitan akhbar negara ini. Akhbar New Straits Times mencatatkan purata kejatuhan terbesar sebanyak 32.4 peratus kepada 37,885 naskhah sehari, diikuti dengan Harian Metro sebanyak 25 peratus kepada 342,689 naskhah. Walau bagaimanapun, dalam laporan Audit Bureau of Circulation Malaysia 2014 (ABC Malaysia 2014) menunjukkan, akhbar berkonsepkan digital atau e-paper- Utusan Malaysia mencatatkan lonjakan langganan 60 peratus kepada 204,302 naskhah, manakala akhbar digital The Star dan Sunday Star E-Paper menokok 64 peratus dengan langganan sebanyak 81,367 and 81,498 setiap satu. Maka, persoalan yang timbul disini adakah peningkatan trend pembacaan akhbar versi digital ini secara perlahan-lahan bakal mengancam sirkulasi akhbar bercetak dalam negara ini? Justeru, kertas ini akan mengkaji trend perolehan akhbar utama tempatan dalam talian ini khususnya dalam konteks langganan serta hubung kaitnya dengan trend sirkulasi akhbar bercetak. Hasil analisis data sekunder yang diperolehi daripada ABC Malaysia menunjukkan, jumlah sirkulasi akhbar Berita Harian, The Star dan New Sunday Times dalam talian menunjukkan pertumbuhan berganda melebihi 100 peratus setiap enam bulan, manakala pertumbuhan sirkulasi akhbar bercetak juga mencatatkan penurunan sekitar 10 hingga 33 peratus khususnya sekitar tahun 2013 dan 2014. Maka, jelas disini menunjukkan bahawa pertumbuhan pantas akhbar versi digital dalam negara ini sejak beberapa tahun lalu tidak memberi kesan signifikan kepada trend pendapatan sirkulasi akhbar bercetak. Trend perolehan sirkulasi akhbar bercetak ini lebih dipengaruhi oleh isu-isu semasa yang diketengahkan sepanjang tempoh tersebut

Cultural inspirations towards Malaysian animation character design

Culture is part of human development which evolves with civilization from ancient times to today’s digital era. Animation contributes to the cultural industry through signs and symbols and is captured from people’s different lifestyle and various grounds including religion, belief systems, politics, tradition, language, tools, costumes, buildings and arts. Wayang Kulit or ‘Shadow Play’ was once a famed traditional culture in the 1960s for entertainment purposes in Malaysia which fundamentally led to the continuation of the 2D and 3D animation studies. Nevertheless, students these days seem lack the sense of local identity as shown in their final animation project, as if the culture sentiment is getting faded. Since culture is also emerging with an identity where both fundamentals are strongly connected, this research aims to identify the influence of culture towards artwork, produced by art and design students who study animation. Content analysis was used to analyze the complete final artwork from selected university in Sarawak which offers this subject as a requirement. Besides a good storyline, animation must have a strong character design with a good personality, appropriate costumes and accessories. Results found that there are cultural influences where the character’s costume design is similar to the Sarawak traditional clothing. Thus, it proves that Malaysian culture is still sturdily inspiring students in creating their artwork

Pengaruh objektivi berita tentang tenaga kerja Indonesia terhadap imej Malaysia di mata masyarakat Sulawesi Selatan

Kajian ini dilakukan untuk mengetahui tahap objektiviti berita akhbar di Sulawesi Selatan dalam menyampaikan berita mengenai permasalahan tenaga kerja Indonesia (TKI) di Malaysia. Kajian berhasrat untuk melihat apakah imej yang dibentuk oleh masyarakat Sulawesi selatan, samada positif atau negative terhadap majikan tenaga kerja Indonesia di Malaysia dan terhadap pemerintah Malaysia. Menurut teori Westershal, objektiviti berita dapat ditinjau daripada dua aspek iaitu menepati fakta (factuality) dan tidak memihak kepada sebelah pihak (impartiality). Kajian ini dijalankan dengan menggabungkan kaedah kualitatif dan kuantitatif untuk melengkapkan dan mengukuhkan dapatan kajian. Responden kaedah kuantitatif terdiri daripada pembaca yang melanggan akhbar Harian Fajar dan Tribun Timur yang telah dipilih secara rawak iaitu seramai 377 orang. Manakala kaedah kualitatif diperoleh daripada daripada temu bual secara mendalam dan perbincangan kumpulan fokus. Keputusan kajian ini menunjukkan terdapat pengaruh objektivi berita tentang tenaga kerja Indonesia di Malaysia terhadap imej Malaysia di mata masyarakat kota Makassar. Hal ini disebabkan kerana berita yang disajikan tidak relevan, kurang mengandungi kebenaran, tidak seimbang dan tidak bersifat neutral. Kedua-dua akhbar yang dijadikan sebagai objek penelitian dinilai dari sudut faktualiti dan impartialiti dalam menyajikan berita-berita mengenai tenaga kerja Indonesia Malaysia. Kajian mendapati bahawa, ruang dan isi berita untuk menjelaskan sesuatu kejadian lebih banyak diberikan kepada tenaga kerja Indonesia dan pemerintah Indonesia jika dibandingkan ruang yang diberikan kepada pihak majikan tenaga kerja Indonesia atau pemerintah Malaysia. Justeru ini membawa kepada penghasilan persepsi negatif dalam kalangan masyarakat Sulawesi selatan terhadap pemerintah Malaysia. Kajian ini melahirkan suatu pandangan bahawa berita yang tidak objektif, tidak menepati fakta, tidak seimbang dan bersifat berat sebelah boleh memberi kesan buruk kepada Negara yang terbabis. Selain daripada itu berita yang disampaikan secara negative dan tidak objektif terhadap sebuah negara mampu untuk membangkitkan sentimen kebencian dan menyebabkan munculnya konflik antara dua buah negara yang dianggap sebagai negara serumpun

Role of graphics in readers' access and retention of online news stories

There is evidence that pictures in text serve various functions, with a potential impact on attention, affect, and cognition. Research on how people read news stories has shown that text accompanied with threatening or negative images influenced readers to read news stories compared to news without pictures. Other research, e.g., by Educational Psychologists, has shown that pictures which explain the text content (here called information graphics) can help people remember that content. So two issues arise, both of which are addressed in this thesis. One is whether information graphics would also encourage people to read the story, and the other is whether the more emotional graphics (here called human interest pictures) would also help retention, perhaps by increasing the reader's motivation. These issues were explored across three experiments in which 88 students participated. The first experiment presented four news stories in a controlled order and confirmed the beneficial effect of information graphics on retention, and suggested that human interest pictures could be equally effective. The second experiment let readers choose the order of reading the news stories and found information graphics increased retention more than human interest pictures, which were better remembered than news stories with no pictures, but picture category had no effect on the order in which stories were read. The third experiment let readers choose only two of the stories and found human interest pictures increased the likelihood that people would choose to read a news story, compared with information graphics. The differences among the experimental findings were attributed to variations in methodology. It can be concluded that human interest pictures and information graphics are most effective for different purposes, and that online news stories could usefully incorporate more pictures. The implications for future developments in digital communications are discussed

Faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi remaja Lembah Klang untuk terus membaca dan membeli melalui pengiklanan Facebook

Facebook bukan sahaja menghubungkan individu atau komuniti, malah ia juga bertindak sebagai laman penting bagi industri pengiklanan untuk menjalankan urusan perniagaan secara global. Kajian ini melihat sejauhmanakah faktor-faktor kepuasan keperluan kognitif, kepuasan keperluan afektif, kepuasan keperluan peribadi integratif serta kepuasan keperluan sosial integratif mempengaruhi tahap penerimaan remaja yang berada pada lingkungan umur 18-24 tahun terhadap pengiklanan dalam Facebook. Model kajian dibentuk berdasarkan Teori Kegunaan dan Kepuasan oleh Elihu Katz, Michael Gurevitch & Jay G. Blumler (1973). Seramai 200 responden dipilih secara Purposive Sampling di sekitar Lembah Klang. Data dikumpulkan menerusi kaedah tinjauan menggunakan soal selidik. Hasil kajian ini menunjukkan pembelian produk untuk memenuhi tuntutan ego sendiri merupakan faktor kepuasan keperluan kognitif yang dapat mempengaruhi tahap penerimaan remaja terhadap pengiklanan Facebook. Selain itu, bagi aspek kepuasan keperluan afektif pula menunjukkan bahawa hanya ciri-ciri keistimewaan iaitu pelbagai aplikasi Facebook yang digunakan dalam pengiklanan Facebook dapat mempengaruhi tahap penerimaan remaja terhadap pengiklanan dalam Facebook. Bagi faktor kepuasan keperluan peribadi integratif pula iaitu ciri pengguna dan sikap berhati-hati terhadap perubahan didapati mempunyai hubungan secara langsung dengan tahap penerimaan pengiklanan Facebook. Dari segi sikap kepuasan keperluan sosial integratif, majoriti responden dalam kajian ini didapati adalah bersikap kolektivisme di mana ia dibuktikan mempengaruhi tahap penerimaan golongan remaja terhadap pengiklanan Facebook

New media usage and youth participation

The Internet is considered a huge development in human civilization. It is literally considered as a practical key or essential to human development and social advancement causing massive innovation in the world. Over the years, the advent of new media has permeated most aspects of our lives, especially that of the young generation. It is against this background that this paper aims to analyse the present use of the new media by youth to gauge their usage in relation to participation and nation building. This study is a country wide survey covering Peninsula and East Malaysia. For sampling purposes the country is divided into six zones. A survey research using questionnaire as instrument was used to obtain data. Prior to the actual survey, a pilot study was first conducted. Some 1182 respondents’ age between 18 and 25 were randomly sampled from the six zones and selection was based on ethnic ratio. The data was analysed descriptively and inferentially using SPSS 20.0. From the results, majority of the respondents, 89% are social media users having a social media account. A discouraging trend with regard to participation is the very low level of giving comments on general societal issues ranging from social issues, the environmental to politics. As it is now, the youth are more inclined to using the new media for entertainment and social networking. It is time to use the new media to engage with community leaders and politicians and comment on issues related to nation building

Covering Covid-19 pandemic on short video platforms in China: a content analysis of Douyin accounts of people's daily and China daily

As a new form of social media, short videos have been deeply seated in Chinese life. In order to expand their influence, China's mainstream media also opened accounts on short video platforms, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. They use short video platforms to report news, which play a key role in guiding public opinion and stabilising people's hearts. Based on the pandemic coverage of two of China's representative media, People's Daily and China Daily on Douyin platform, content analysis method is used to analyse the reporting frequency, video length, reporting content, reporting tendency, and user engagement, and compare the similarities and differences between the two media in the above five aspects. It was found that in terms of reporting frequency, the development trend of the two media is different, but they post roughly the same number of videos per day on average, and the number of videos released during the pandemic is higher than usual. In terms of video length, most of the videos of the two media are produced in a duration of one minute. China Daily produced more long videos than People's Daily. In terms of the reporting content, the two media are involved in 11 constructed categories, but the top four categories are different because of the different position. About the reporting tendency, People's Daily has strong subjective emotion, and China Daily reported more neutral news. As for user engagement, People's Daily did better in likes, comments and shares, although both posted more likes, comments and shares than usual during the pandemic