Motivation-Hygiene theory or popularly known as Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene theory was introduced by Herzberg, Mausner, & Synderman in 1959. Originally, it explains the motivation and hygiene factors that affect job satisfaction. Motivation factors play important role in improving job satisfaction, while hygiene factors do not contribute toward job satisfaction although their absence will lead to dissatisfaction. This study was conducted to test the applicability of this theory on learning satisfaction. The objectives of the study are (1) to identify teaching approach (instructional strategies) preferred by learners in higher learning institution, specifically IIUM, (2) to examine the relationship between motivation factors and hygiene factors with learning satisfaction, (3) to test the applicability of Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene theory on learning satisfaction, and (4) to test the applicability of the theory in the Islamic setting in IIUM. The study employed a quantitative research, using survey method, by using questionnaire as the research instrument. Pilot study was conducted to pre-test the research instrument. The data were collected from 240 undergraduate students of different departments under Human Sciences Division of Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (KIRKHS), International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Using stratified random sampling based on department, gender, and nationality, data were collected in April and May 2014. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20 for descriptive statistics and inferential statistics to achieve the objectives of the study and to test their hypotheses. Four general hypotheses and five specific hypotheses were generated in this study. The finding proved that all factors were significantly correlated, but majorities of the factors showed weak relationship. The result showed that there was a similarity between motivation and hygiene factors in contributing towards learning satisfaction. This indicated that the theory was not applicable on learning satisfaction as well as in the Islamic setting, since the findings rejected the general statement of the theory.

This is a reception study of Korean dramas among Malaysian women, the aim of which to answer two research questions: (1) How do Malaysian women read Korean drama media text?; and (2) In what way do women of different age groups hold diverse and parallel readings of Korean drama media text? Informed by Stuart Hall’s (1980) Encoding/Decoding method, a qualitative methodology using focus group interviews was taken to garner deeper understanding and to yield richer information on the social phenomenon among informants who are avid viewers of Korean dramas. Four focus-group interview sessions were conducted with each group comprising of six individuals, in which the discourses were guided by semi-structured interview protocols. Two of the four focus groups were made up of working and married adult respondents, while the other two groups represented the student, single adolescent respondents. Prompts in the form of edited clips of selected popular Korean dramas were shown to the participants during the interview as a stimulus to gauge engaging discourse, as well as serving as cues in recalling their Korean drama viewing diet experiences. At the end of the interviews, participants were asked to respond to a short questionnaire, which included questions on demographic information and viewing patterns of Korean dramas. The researcher prepared the verbatim transcriptions of the focus group interviews. Analysis of the interview data yielded eight themes after rigorous coding process. The themes were: male-centric, family-oriented, female-centric, cultural pattern, storyline, cosmopolitan lifestyle, realism, and parasocial relationship. The readings of the themes varied across the focus group clusters (adults and adolescents), based on the three types of readings namely dominant, oppositional and negotiated reading. The respondents were also found to have parallel and divergent reading between the two clusters. The discussion of the findings were presented in light of their demographic differences.

Forgiveness is encouraged in Islam as it helps to restore relationships among people. There are several ways that people usually used in forgiving others, but they differ from individual to individual. As such, this study examines the determinants of communicating forgiveness among university students. The specific objectives of this study are (1) to find out the level of forgiveness among IIUM students, (2) to identify ways of communicating forgiveness among students, (3) to identify different ways of communicating forgiveness across different demographic characteristics, (4) to identify different ways of communicating forgiveness across different personality types, and (5) to examine the relationship between ways of communicating forgiveness and religious commitment. The data were collected from 390 students from four kulliyyah (faculty), namely, Architecture and Environmental Design (AED), Engineering (ENGIN), Economics and Management Sciences (ENMS), and Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (IRKHS), using a stratified random sampling procedure. These kulliyyah were selected to represent two main educational streams in the IIUM Gombak Campus. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were employed to answer the objectives and to test the hypotheses of the study. Three general hypotheses were generated in this study. The first two hypotheses were to find out the differences between ways of communicating forgiveness across different demographic characteristics and across different personality types. The third hypothesis was to find out the relationship between ways of communicating forgiveness and religious commitment. The results showed that the level of forgiveness among the students is quite high and the commonly used ways in communicating forgiveness among them are the direct approach, the conditional approach, the spiritual approach, and the avoidance approach. However, it is found that regardless of demographic characteristics and personality types, the three main approaches in forgiving others are the direct approach, the conditional approach, and the spiritual approach. The avoidance approach is frequently used only among selected groups such as female students, younger students, undergraduate students, and Malaysian students. It is also found that ways of communicating forgiveness are positively related to religious commitment. In addition, the respondents were also asked to share their experience in ways of communicating forgiveness using openended questionnaire. The responses were content-analyzed. It is found that the content analysis results support the quantitative analysis.

The purpose of this study is to explore the usage of Facebook among Palestinian journalists for dissemination of Palestinian news. The study focuses on Palestine news, from both Gaza Strip and West Bank, whereby these territories have witnessed rapid updates on daily life events through social media development. This study was directed by three research questions, which are: (1) How do Palestinian journalists frame Palestinian news on Facebook? (2) What is the rationale behind Palestinian journalists’ decision in choosing Facebook to disseminate news to their followers? and (3) How significant is Facebook in changing the landscape of journalism practice in Palestine?. Framing Theory was employed in this study to investigate how Palestinian journalists frame the Palestinian news on Facebook. In order to answer the research questions, qualitative research method was adopted by conducting in-depth interviews with Palestinian journalists who are currently working in Palestine, own Facebook account and disseminate news through that social media platform. Data were collected through purposive sampling and later analysed using thematic analysis. It was found that Palestinian journalists frame their news posted on Facebook based on human interest frame, attribution of responsibility frame, morality frame, political frame, and public opinion frame. They use Facebook as a medium to disseminate the news because it is broadly used and popular, user-friendly and effective application, and allowing freedom of expression. The adoption of Facebook in the dissemination of news has changed the media landscape in Palestine by being a significant journalistic tool, increasing rapidity in news dissemination, becoming new source of information and encouraging two-way communication

Radio as a source of information about Islam is not a new phenomenon in Malaysian society. Although there were some religious radio programs broadcasted over the radio in Malaysia under Radio Malaya and Radio Television Malaysia, there was never an attempt to run a religious radio station by itself until the year 2001, when the first religious radio station was set up under IKIM (‘Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia’ or The Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia). This radio station known as Radio IKIM, dedicates itself to the broadcasting of Islamic religious programs according to its stated objective - "The continuos effort of producing quality audio programs to promote Islamic understanding to society." Based upon the abovementioned perspective, this study had been designed to achieve the following objectives. (1) to find out the factors related to frequency of listening to Radio IKIM (2) To find out the frequency of listening to program of Radio IKIM (3) To find out the reasons for listening to program of Radio IKIM (4) To find out the amount of religious knowledge or information gained from listening to program of Radio IKIM (5) To find out other sources of religious information used by listeners of Radio IKIM and (6) To find out the effect of the programs on the listeners. The method used to collect data was by distributing 300 questionnaires to the Malaysian academic and administrative staff of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Gombak campus. Out of the 300 questionnaires distributed, only 188 or 62% of the respondents returned the questionnaires. The sample was selected randomly from a list of Malaysian academic and administrative staff serving at the Gombak campus and out of 949 staff members, every third person was chosen as a respondent. The data was collected using an interview schedule which was divided into six (6) parts or sections. In general, four (4) hypotheses related to the findings were tested. However, all of the hypotheses were not supported due to several reasons which the researcher had stated in the summary of the findings.

There are many Muslim influencers (MI) around the globe who used social media to promote their brands and lifestyles, and to disseminate information to their fans. In the modern era, the method of engagement between influencers and fans evolved from simple face-to-face interaction to the use of technology and new media that are more sophisticated and intricate. The concept of MI also evolved alongside modern technology. They used new media such as social media to spread information and interacted with fans through these platforms. The concept of MI had already been discussed in past literature, but when it came to responses or intentions to support geopolitical issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict on social media, many questions arose regarding the effect of MI in shaping the views of social media users. The aim of this study was to identify the relationship between parasocial interaction and the intention to support Palestine. The main questions highlighted were: What type of responses did International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) students have regarding their relationship with MI, and did the students show solidarity because of their interaction with MI on social media? A quantitative analysis was conducted to obtain a general view of Muslim influencers. A total of 354 students from the IIUM were chosen using stratified sampling to answer the survey questionnaire. There were six components in the questionnaire, namely demographics, exposure to the Israel-Palestine issue on social media, parasocial interaction towards MI, and the intention to support Palestine through online activism. The finding of this study revealed that the majority of the students who followed Muslim influencers, used social media regularly and were exposed to the Israel-Palestine issue on social media, thus tend to show greater support for Palestine on social media. Keyword: Muslim influencers, Online activism, Israel-Palestine issues, Parasocial Interaction, Social media, Quantitative Analysis.

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This study has examined the assumptions of the Spiral of Silence Theory in the presence of Internet use variables on a probability sample of 312 undergraduate students of the University of Malaya. The study adopted cross-sectional research design using survey method. The respondents’ own opinion, perception of current and future climates of opinion, and willingness to express own opinion were tapped on the controversial issue of using English as a medium for teaching Math and Science in schools in Malaysia, on a 7-point scale. The respondents’ Internet usage, exposure to TV news and informational programs, and newspaper reading patterns also were measured at an ordinal level measurement. In addition, the data were collected on respondents’ fear of isolation using a 10-item index on a 7-point scale. After the data preparation, the data were analyzed using SPSS software, and relevant statistical methods such as correlation, and linear regression were used to test the hypotheses of the study. Based on the Spiral of Silence and Internet use literature, six hypotheses were tested. It was hypothesized that traditional media use will relate with own opinion, opinion climate, and opinion expression. The study found a partial support for this hypothesis, with TV news & informational programs relating with own opinion and opinion expression, and newspaper reading relating with own opinion and opinion climate. In addition, of the four Internet use variables, blog use had a significant relationship with own opinion and opinion climate, and online news use related with opinion expression. Blog use also moderated the relationship between TV news & informational programs and opinion climate. Contrary to our expectation, opinion climate and fear of isolation variables had no relationship with opinion expression. The implications of these findings are discussed from the stand point of the conceptualization of the Spiral of Silence phenomena.

Focus in studies on communication and media is most often directed towards audiences, the level of influence on the audience by their local as well as international media and the audience perceptions with regard to various media content. The focus of the present study is however directed towards examining the use of metaphors in the coverage given to a Malaysian event in selected International magazines. The International newsmagazines selected for the study were: the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Economist, the Newsweek and the Time. Individual metaphors were used as unit of analysis. In all, 1318 metaphors were coded into four thematic categories and three image categories to answer two research questions. First research question was: What categories of metaphors were emphasized in the International magazines coverage of the 1998 – 1999 Anwar Ibrahim event? The second research question was: What kind of image of the Malaysian actors was contained in the coverage? Quantitative content analysis revealed that the coverage mostly emphasized the thematic category (1) political metaphors, followed in that order by (2) the social, (3) legal and (4) economic categories. It was also found that the coverage of the Malaysian actors was pervasively negative, as a vast majority of metaphors were coded as unfavourable to Malaysian actors. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of Gramsci’s hegemony theory and media framing research.

The main purpose of this study is to find out how media framing on Somalia during the early period of state-building was represented by local and regional newspapers based on the framing theory. The study employed two online newspapers (Garowe Online (GO) of Somalia and Daily Nation (DN) of Kenya). A total of 223 news stories were collected for a period of three months (1/08 – 31/10/2012). The method used in this study was qualitative content analysis in nature to produce in-depth understanding even beyond the concepts. The findings have shown different aspects between the two newspapers. With regard to Garowe Online (GO), the results indicate that its framing nature of Somalia was positively framed while Daily Nation (DN) portrayed negatively. The most framed issues were violence and democratic process and both GO and DN was almost similar in coverage despite the different scale in their stories. Furthermore, the sources referenced by GO and DN were largely different. For GO, the newspaper depended mostly on civilian sources, own reports and military sources while DN prioritized military sources first, News Agencies second and finally, its own reports. The study has concluded that three facts are rooted in these differences: 1) national interest, 2) economic interest and 3) editorial policy. Thus, despite the chaotic situation in Somalia, the local media framing on Somalia was positive which opposes the exposure of international and regional media framing on Somalian issues.

This is a study of using middle managers’ stories to understand the culture of a Malaysian organisation. Using Schein’s (2010) organisational culture theory, a qualitative methodology using semi-structured in-depth interviews was conducted to obtain the stories of middle managers from XYZ organisation about their organisation and its livelihoods. There were 18 middle managers altogether, however only 14 respondents agreed to participate until the end of the study. The researcher prepared verbatim transcripts of the in-depth interviews and analysis of the data generated to seven main themes which portrayed the culture established at XYZ organisation. The themes were (1) the three leaders, (2) work routines and relationships, (3) the puppet master, (4) the cold fish, (5) stingy management, (6) heroes and (7) hopes and dreams. The themes built from the respondents’ stories also exposed XYZ organisational culture dimensions. From the respondents’ stories, it is found that XYZ organisation has a miasmic and toxic culture. This study suggests XYZ organisation can cure its miasmic and toxic culture by hiring a consultant to help XYZ management to cure their organisation’s culture, use confrontation and survey assessment to deal with toxic employers or employees, eliminate toxic employees from organisation, and lastly report to a person that has higher authority in the organisation. This study shows the importance of Malaysian organisations to listen to their middle managers’ stories because it can help to improve leadership skills and employees’ productivity which in turn cause the organisation to be more prosperous and healthy. This research also contributes to the enrichment of the existing body of knowledge in the area of organisational communication. Lastly, this work can serve as future reference for Malaysian organisational practitioners and academic researchers on the subjects of organisational culture, organisational stories and the relationship between these two areas.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the online game playing phenomenon and its effects on family, academic, and religious obligations among Muslim adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 in the Gombak district, Selangor. This study was guided by three research questions, which were: (1) Why do students play online games? (2) What is the state of the online gaming phenomenon among Muslim pupils attending lower secondary schools in Gombak? (3) Do online gaming patterns displace the time otherwise spent on family, education and religious obligations? Time Displacement Theory (Putnam, 1995) was used as the theoretical framework of the study. Given the nature of the study which sought to better understand the phenomenon of online gaming among adolescent Muslims, it seemed befitting to undertake a methodology that capitalized on threads of conversation to yield rich and meaningful data. Focus group interviews were conducted with informants representing the three age groups: Age 13 (Form 1), 14 (Form 2) and 15 (Form 3). Online gaming activity is said to be prevalent among adolescents thus justifying the selection of this age group as participants in the study. The analysis of the three focus group interviews yielded 11 salient themes which were: (1) Reasons and Motivation, (2) Sense of Achievement, (3) Wherewithal, (4) Bond of Attachment, (5) Cynosure of Mind (6) Parents Awareness, (7) Online gaming popularity, (8) Online games versus academic, (9) Sense of chronemics, (10) Truancy, and (11) Time displacement. The results confirmed that online gaming has displaced time for family, academic and religious obligations.

The ever-expanding communication technologies and high usage of the Internet among youths have created an avenue for an emerging social problem, cyberbullying. This study analyses the contributing factors to cyberbullying behaviour; 397 Muslim undergraduate students participated in the study and it has yielded some interesting results. Underpinned by the theory of planned behaviour, this study found some support for the theory. Specifically, perceived social pressure (subjective norms) has been identified as the most important predictor, followed by attitudes towards cyberbullying. However, perceived behavioural control was not significantly related to the toxic behaviour. Also, an additional variable, religiosity, has been added into the framework and the result suggested that there is a significant negative relationship with the intention to perpetrate cyberbullying. Overall, these results indicate the need to address the anti-social behaviour by related-parties and preventive measures need to be taken in order to promote pro-social behaviours in the online environment.

This study aims to explore the factors influencing professional values of public relations practitioners in Malaysia such as education, length of service, professionalism, and code of ethics. Data were collected by convenience sampling. A total of 427 questionnaires were distributed to public relations practitioners in Malaysia, and 322 questionnaires were returned. The study included 61%female respondents, and 39% male respondents. The analyses of data were done via Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. The study was carried out to analyze professional values, and to identify the influence of professionalism and code of ethics on professional values of public relations practitioners. Additionally, the study was conducted to examine whether education and experience influence professional values through professionalism, and code of ethics. The study includes six hypotheses; which were tested to answer the research questions. The results from this study fully support the hypotheses. It has indicated that professionalism and code of ethics have an influence on professional values of public relations practitioners. The results also show that education influences both professionalism and code of ethics, and experience influences both professionalism and code of ethics.

This study presents a qualitative content analysis study of Al-Hadaf, a quarterly Islamic newsletter published by the Brunei Darussalam State Mufti Department. The newsletter is seen as an authored system of ordering, a noble action with a magnificent aim of converting the Muslim readers into the ideally perfect men (insan-ul-kamil) through its narratives. Theoretically, narrative is a work of social construction which represents the social reality of life-world affairs. It is certainly conditioned by social and in turn creates social influence. This study attempts to examine how Al-Hadaf provides readers with the appropriate Islamic knowledge, as espoused in the ‘aqidah, fiqh and tasawuf disciplines, on the relationship with Allah S.W.T the only one and true God, and performing good deeds and not committing evil acts and correlating dunya with akhirah. Qualitative methodology is employed as a framework of the study with the narrative theory as its underpinning theory. Analysis of data is made through the content analysis and semiotic applications, which are then categorized according to the main themes of the al-Qur’an as observed by Izutsu (2004). The main themes were God-man, good-evil and dunya-akhirah. The study found narratives in Al-Hadaf basically revolved around the concept of insan as the created and as a servant to Allah S.W.T., the Creator, whereby he/she needs to acquire the three essential religious disciplines of knowledge, namely, ‘aqidah, fiqh and tasawuf and putting them into total religious practices in order to achieve the status of a true knowledgeable Muslim in the real sense of the word.

The study explores the uses of social media in public relations practices among practitioners in Lagos state, Nigeria. The study is based on the assumption that social media have changed the way public relations is being practised in contemporary times; the 21st century. The study is premised on the ‘Uses and Gratifications’ (U & G) Theory, a perspective that posits that individuals actively choose media or media content to satisfy their goals. Irrespective of the fact that the same theory has been applied in other countries, mostly Western (developed), this study provides an African i.e. Nigerian (developing country) perspective which differs in terms of its socio-cultural, political and economic status. In-depth interviews were conducted with 11 PR practitioners in Lagos state, Nigeria, whose companies’/organizations’ names were retrieved from a list of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations Practitioners (NIPR) to gather data for this study. Adopting a qualitative approach also helped to provide the practitioners’ first-hand information on their experiences about social media usage in the profession. These practitioners were drawn from the government sector, an academic institution and private PR firms, all of whom actively use the social media in their PR practices. The study proposed four research questions: RQ1: How do PR practitioners in Nigeria use social media in their practices? RQ2: Why do PR practitioners in Nigeria use social media in their practices? RQ3: In what ways do social media gratify PR practitioners’ needs in Nigeria? RQ4: How has social media usage shaped PR practices in Nigeria? The findings of the study affirm that public relations practitioners in Nigeria have largely incorporated social media usage in their practices and derive numerous gratifications therein. However, they have a number of downsides to the usage in regards to how it has shaped their practices. Practically, the study suggests that practitioners be educated on how to properly use these social media platforms to achieve maximum professional objectives, employers should not relegate all PR functions and duties to only those competent in social media usage as not all PR duties can be achieved using the social media. The study also suggests the need for further research on the same phenomenon in other parts of the country.

Social media offer numerous opportunities for Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) to directly engage and interact with their stakeholders. Social media sites such as Twitter is a tool that offers new ways to develop and maintain relationships between organizations and their audiences. The study affirms that Twitter has the potential to enhance two-way communication that subsequently helps organizations to achieve their intended goals. The objectives of this research are to discover to what extend and reasons for using Twitter among NPOs in Malaysia, and how NPOs in Malaysia use Twitter to build online relationships with their stakeholders. To determine whether Twitter communication tools are actively being used for stakeholder engagement by NPOs, a content analysis of organizational tweets and semi-structured interviews are conducted. Specifically, 10 renowned humanitarian and medical relief NPOs located in Kuala Lumpur that have active Twitter account are selected for this study. Data is obtained from Twitter accounts as tweets, retweets, hashtags, public messages, and hyperlinks. At the same time, semi-structured interview is conducted with communication practitioners and social media practitioners. Data is analysed using thematic approach. The finding of this study shows that NPOs in Malaysia use Twitter as a promotional and network building tool. In terms of engaging with stakeholders, the constrains and limitations of Twitter made practitioners to underutilize the two-way dialogic communication. In terms of recommendation, the study suggests that NPOs need to integrate and imply more features in an effective manner into their tweets that lead them to two-way interactive conversation with their potential stakeholders to sustain and maintain relationship.

The study explores the uses and gratifications (U & G) theory of the use of Facebook among Palestinian students at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). The study is premised on U & G theory, which posits that individuals actively choose media or media content to satisfy their needs. In this study, IIUM Palestinian students provide their perspective towards the uses and gratifications of using Facebook as they experience living abroad. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 Palestinian students in IIUM because they are heavy users of Facebook Palestinians and students of the IIUM. Facebook is the most convenient platform to express ideas and opinions on the crisis of Palestine. Therefore, the number of Palestinian users on Facebook has increased significantly due to the Palestine-Israel conflict that is taking place in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. This qualitative research study is to contribute in terms of examining student perception and how their needs could be gratified by Facebook and why the Social Networking Site (SNS) gratifies their needs. All participants in this study use Facebook actively in their daily life. The study proposed three research questions: (1) What needs of IIUM Palestinian students are gratified by Facebook? (2) Why does Facebook gratify the needs of IIUM Palestinian students? and (3) How could Facebook improve its features in gratifying the needs of IIUM Palestinian students? The Palestinian students were selected based on specific criteria: 1) IIUM students in Gombak, 2) Palestinian citizens and 3) active Facebook users. The participants were also between 23 and 32 years old, had one account on Facebook each, had been using Facebook for 5-10 years and had been visiting Facebook daily for 1-8 hours per day. The findings of the study identify the needs of participants that are gratified by Facebook as follows: connecting, source of news and information, freedom of expression, entertainment and academic purposes. The results also find the reasons why Facebook gratifies IIUM Palestinian students’ needs. This is because SNS is perceived as a convenient platform, it is a famous SNS, it provides entertainment and allows the freedom of expression. In addition, the participants in this study pointed out three improvements that are required from Facebook that will motivate them to use the SNS in order to satisfy more needs: improving the privacy of users, reducing advertisements and allowing more freedom to express themselves.