Browsing by Author "Khaizuran Abdul Jalil"

The reporting of Halal issues in Malaysia had increased with the aspiration of Malaysia to become the World Halal Hub. The increasing awareness among Muslims of their consumer rights had also contributed towards higher media coverage of the Halal issues. Do the media reports on Halal issues affect the corporate image and reputation of companies that adopt the Halal co-branding? Quantitative content analysis of four main newspapers in Malaysia, two Malay and two English, was carried out to answer this question. Framing theory is used to analyze the coverage in order to see how the Malaysian newspapers reflect upon the Halal issues. A case study of the Halal status of sausage casings, which broke out in March 2005, was selected for this study. A total of 76 articles were analyzed and five hypotheses had been tested and supported. The study found that Malay language newspapers give more coverage to the Halal issues, and present them differently compared to the English newspapers, the government as source of news gave positive statements while Non-government organization as source of news gave negative statements and the government was used as the source of news more than the other sources.

Smoking has been an enduring problem in Asia. This health risk behaviour continues to haunt Malaysians as the number of smokers continues to rise. Taking a communication perspective on this issue, the theoretical arguments of the Situational Theory of Problem Solving is tested on Malaysians to explore their response towards smoking. The objective of this study is to understand how the Malaysian publics respond to smoking within the Situational Theory of Problem Solving framework, segmentation of the publics on the smoking issue and whether religiosity affects the publics‘ response towards smoking. Online survey was conducted and stratified random sampling was employed. A total of 334 administrative staff members of seven universities in Malaysia participated in this study. Data were analysed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and other statistical methods. Seven hypotheses were tested and supported. Understanding of the communicative reaction may help in the Stop Smoking campaigns as well as highlight the segmentation of the publics within this issue. Four types of publics were found similar to other studies utilising the Situational Theory of Problem Solving with aware public being the prominent group in this study. Aside from reinforcing the original model of the Situational Theory of Problem Solving, this study also added religiosity to further understand its contribution in combating health risk behaviours, such as smoking. Results show that religiosity plays an important role in increasing one‘s involvement recognition and problem recognition. The main objective for public relations practitioners is to mobilise the publics to become active publics on the issues concerned. Active publics have the potential to become activists as well as enhance the overall effort to solve the smoking problem.