The most widely used social media such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have changed the way of communication between people especially amongst youth. It has been identified that individuals who spent more time online experienced more symptoms of depression. Therefore, this study was done to identify the level of depression and to find out the relationship between social media and depression among undergraduate students. This is a quantitative study using a survey method involving 150 students of local university in Malaysia. The questionnaire consists of three sections which are demographic information, Social Media Addiction Scale-Student Form (SMAS-SF) and Beck Depression Inventory 2nd Edition (BDI-II). The finding indicates that majority of the respondents (44% ) have minimal depression while only 13.3% has severe depression. Pearson correlation test has been employed to investigate the relationship between social media and depression. The result showed that there is a correlation between social media and depression, r=0.199, p=<0.01. In conclusion, it depicts that social media is significantly related and have positive relationship to depression among students. This study provides valuable information for counsellors and lecturers to identify students who have suffered from depression related to social media use and help in managing the students.

Al-Jazeera has given its estimated 35 to 45 million viewers within the Muslim world, daily news feed that stands up to its network slogan "The Opinion and the Other Opinion". The network has been the important source and for the first time, represents not only the voice of Arab region, but also the voice of Islamic world into the international news agenda. Therefore, it is vital to understand the discourse presented in the news to understand its meaning and direction. This study analyzes the news clips of Al-Jazeera English coverage of the war in Gaza which started on December 27, 2008 and ended on January 21, 2009. Analysis of the clips has been done using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which assumes language and social process are deeply implicated with one another Findings identified (5) distinctive discourses from the selected news clips. Among themes are "Israels are attacking Palestinian, not only Hamas", and "The Zionists keeps lying"; which interlinked as it highlighted a continuous suppression towards Palestinian by Israeli. For Al-Jazeera, this can be regarded as counter discourse to the western media reporting on the conflict.

Most gifted students love to study, work hard to complete cognitive tasks, and wanted to have more difficult subjects for enhancing their intellectual capability. However, they are unable to do so in their regular classes even in their special gifted group. Some of the challenges faced by gifted and talented students are teachers’ stigma, negative peer attitudes, difficulty understanding others, problems related to perfectionism, as well as impatience and intolerance. Thus, there is a dire need to cater the social and emotional issues of these students. Counselors may be unaware and unable to respond to these concerns because they are not well-trained to counsel this unique population. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of gifted and talented students, challenges that they face and the need for counseling approaches to address all these issues to unleash the learning and development of gifted students.

Many Arab Muslim students come to predominantly Muslim countries to pursue their education because they are drawn to these nations for their Islamic identity, in which they can share the same religious beliefs and practices. Nevertheless, these students still need to adapt to the differing cultural and religious aspects of the host country. This study aims to delve into the dynamics of intercultural communication among groups with similar religious identities but originating from distinct cultures. By utilizing data collected from Yemeni postgraduate students in four public universities in Malaysia, this article explores how these students manifest their religious identity through religious practices and how they establish both in-group and out-group mentalities to navigate the challenges of living in a foreign country. The findings reveal that Yemeni postgraduate students in Malaysia maintain a strong connection to their religious and cultural practices, suggesting minimal shifts in their overall religious identity. The analysis also indicates that the students who are more devout and frequent religious centers tend to assimilate more fully into Malay Muslim society.

Since 2008, Malaysian General Elections were often dubbed as “social media election”. Twitter's combination of brevity, immediacy, interactivity and virility has enabled it to become a go-to platform for political communication among politicians, journalists and citizens. To understand Twitter uptake among Malaysian citizen during the 2018 general election, this article adopts Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchy-of-influences model. The top 50 tweets from the political hashtag #pru14 between 28 April 2018 until 10 May 2018 will be analysed. The analysis will be based on two types of influences that may affect this mediation process; influences of political reality, the influences based on individual characteristics of users and the nature of communication on Twitter. This study found that when the mediated political event cannot be accessed directly by the public, tweets from influencers dominates the Top Tweets. However, when the public can get access to the mediated events directly, tweets from the public are catching the attention on the #PRU14. This study also found that there are more male twitters than female, and most of them appeared to be in their youth.

Internet, media sosial dan perhubungan awam memainkan peranan penting didalam organisasi pada masa ini. Kertas seminar ini menghuraikan peranan internet, media sosial dan perhubungan awam pada masa kini dimana kita tidak dapat lari dari mengadaptasikan teknologi media sosial didalam kehidupan seharian kita. Selain itu ia mendedahkan juga strategi perhubungan awam di Malaysia didalam menangani isu-isu perhubungan awam dan internet di Malaysia secara amnya. Selain itu ia juga kertas ini juga memperlihatkan faedah dan kategori media sosial didalam Perhubungan awam dan juga cabaran-cabaran perhubungan awam dalam media sosial.

USIM hopes to produce graduates that are not only able to function effectively as professionals in their respective disciplines, but, at the same time, are ready to contribute and make a difference to society. The basic principle is that integrating religious sciences with social and physical sciences will not only provide a more comprehensive understanding of current global challenges, but also offer a fresh alternative in solving them. USIM believes that Islamic values are universal, and history has proven that these values can be shared by people of all faiths; living together harmoniously with mutual respect and tolerance. It is also an effort towards reviving the scientific and technological feats of Muslim scholars in the past and moving it forward.

This study explores the role of volunteers in contributing to the betterment of the quality of life for disable people. It looks at the involvement and importance of normal volunteers and volunteers with disabilities in helping the life of disable group. This study employs video ethnography method in which the data are gathered and accumulated through video recording of the interviews, observation as well as analysis of input given by the informant. The main objective of this study is to create a documentary video on volunteerism as well as ascertaining the profile of volunteers, the elements that motivates them and their main role in helping people with disabilities. A short documentary entitled "Misi Norsyam" with duration of 17 and 30 minutes was created. This research found that family background, education and level of income contributes to the involvement of a person in volunteerism.

On the 27' of March 2008, a 15-minute Dutch film, "Fitna", was released on the Internet. The film, which shows images of Quranic verses with clips of violence, received harsh condemnation from the Muslims all over the world. This event further cemented the issue of misconception of Western media towards Islam where Muslims have been repeatedly portrayed in hostile manner. This study will examine the coverage of major newspapers in the US and UK before and after the release of the anti-Islam film. The aim of the research is to look at how Western media frame the news pertaining to the release of the film which is seen by Muslim society as a deliberate and blatant attack towards Islam. There were 64 articles analysed from five newspapers in the US and five from the UK. Four indicators will be used in the content analysis of the articles; the framing of articles, what trigger the news, the underlying messages and the choice of sources. The results do not support the expectation that Western media are bias towards the filmmaker's right to release his anti-Islam film. Majority of the articles also sided with religious sensitivity of Muslim communities.

Artikel ini membincangkan mengenai masa depan industri perhubungan awam di Malaysia dan sejauh mana ia relevan dan berkembang seiring dengan pertumbuhan politik, sosial, ekonomi domestik dan antarabangsa. Hal ini penting memandangkan aktiviti dan industri perhubungan awam di negara ini telah lama bertapak sejak sebelum Malaysia mencapai kemerdekaan. Pada masa ini, pencarian bakat dan tawaran pekerjaan oleh pihak industri terhadap lulusan perhubungan awam masih berlaku di negara ini. Tambahan pula, banyak universiti dan institusi pengajian tinggi di negara ini masih menawarkan program perhubungan awam di peringkat diploma atau sarjana muda. Profesional serta pelajar perhubungan awam pada masa kini dan akan datang akan menghadapi cabaran yang begitu sengit dengan adanya teknologi-teknologi terkini seperti media sosial serta dengan adanya data raya (Big Data) serta cabaran berita palsu (fake news). Mereka mestilah melengkapkan diri dengan pengetahuan dan kemahiran ini dengan secukupnya dalam menghadapi masa depan perhubungan awam yang lebih mencabar.

New media plays an important role in the development of a country. This study explores public relations, social media, Islamic work ethics and new media usage trends among public relations units of ministries in Malaysia. The results of the study use content analysis method on the Ministry of Malaysia's Followers Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts in October 2019. The results show three Ministries with the most followers are the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Domestic Affair and Ministry of Youth and Sports.

Social media has fostered new forms of political communication and participation. These communicative forms include wit, parody, sarcasm and memification. Politicians who attempt to enhance their popularity using a humorous tone in their online discourse, is watched by a broad audience. In doing so, they try to project a positive self-image to attract prospective voters. Using the former Malaysian prime minister, Dato’ Sri Najib Razak’s Facebook posts as a case study, this research investigates the persuasive capability of political humour. Based on interviews with 27 undergraduates students from Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, this study analyses how exposure to political humour by Najib Razak would increase the salience of particular issues or constructs in the minds of the youth and how it contributes to bonding between politicians and audiences. This study found that the respondents who already have a high interest in politics are persuaded by Najib Razak’s political acts and decisions. However, the majority of the respondents are less persuaded by his political humour and did not think his Facebook posts will change their attitude towards him. They, however, found his humourous political message entertaining and improved his image among the younger generation.

Facebook has become one of the most popular social media platforms that being used in Malaysia election campaigns. This platform was proven easy to access and has wide range of users besides being a facility for the election candidates and political parties to connect directly with their voters or target group. However, the persuasion portrayed through the information disseminated and shared through this platform had been seen as created certain perception among the voters, impacting their voting behaviour. Most political parties have creatively sustained in utilizing Facebook platform to influence the voters to believe in information that they shared. This study focuses further into this area by reviewing the usage of Facebook by selected candidates in election campaign during the 15th Selangor State Legislative Assembly General Election held in August 2023. Characterwascs, issues highlighted, and viewpoints of these candidates’ Facebook postings during the campaign were further scrutinized. Content analysis done on the Facebook postings showed that the election candidates had dynamically and strategically used Facebook as a medium to create and sustain feedback and comments. The findings hope to further comprehend the accordance of Facebook as one of social media platform in politics. The cascade of political participating through Facebook in Selangor election perceived a trend of more consistent social media tool usage as a part of Malaysia politics political strategies. This study also held to assess the capability and persuasiveness of Facebook to determine the role of social media as part of an effective political communication strategy.

There have been a significant rise of local programs in TV stations in Malaysia. One form of the program that have been gaining interest is known as Islamic televangelism. Online focus groups discussion were conducted to understand audiences’ perception on Islamic televangelism programs. The interaction among these television audiences-turned-online followers revealed aspects of audience taste, audience segmentation and the use of social media. Findings illustrate that Muslim audiences in Malaysia are rather diverged due to a large amount of religious television programs. The diversity of the programs shown in television allows for audience to receive a variety of Islamic knowledge and contemporary religious issues. Muslim audiences now have access to an assortment religious programs with different hosts explaining and simplifying religious principles and practices. Caution, however, must be exercised when audiences display a rather intense preferences when acquiring religious knowledge through television. Unjustified reasons and obsessed emotions can interrupt the unity of Muslim society as whole and some form of vigilance should be observed for Islamic televangelism programs. Keywords: religious programs, Islam, television, Muslim audiences, Malaysia

The microblogging site Twitter gives politicians greater autonomy and enables them to operate individually by easily communicating online and on a personal level with the public. Based on the framework of Political Discourse Analysis, this article analyses the language use on the Twitter posts of former Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak – @NajibRazak. This paper attempts to discern discursive practices that may produce and reproduce unequal power relations between politicians and the public. This is done through analyses at both topical or macro level and lexical or micro level. Findings show that Najib’s tweets convey implicit common sense assumptions, which highlight a paternalistic and government-knows-best approach that is known as a common characteristic of Asian governance.

The proclamation of National Drug Policy on 19 February 1983 by former Prime Minister, Y.A.B. Dato' Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (presently Tun Dr. Mahathir) has proven that the Government is serious in combating drug abuse. This new strategy, which endorsed by the National Drug Council on 11 June 1996, were focusing more on the prevention steps, enforcement and rehabilitation efforts for those involved in this substance misuse. The drafting of the policy is seen significant in shaping Malaysian as drug-free society. Apart from regular rehabilitation approach, an alternative wield of spiritual element were applied as part of a drug treatment. Based on the scenario, this study will examine the human communication approach implemented in spiritual-based treatment centre, Pondok Remaja Inabah, Kuala Nerang, Kedah. As an independent treatment hub, they exercise Islamic-based healing method during the treatment phases. Therefore, this study aims to distinguish the effectiveness of communication process from three perspectives and indicators; intrapersonal, interpersonal and group communication. Observation via questionnaire will be conducted to obtain information and feedback from the inmates. Based on variables constructed, the research findings will describe most effective communication process during the treatment and in addition to that, remarks are expected from the inmates for future betterment of Pondok Remaja Inabah.

This article seeks to explore the influence of the nation-state context on the coverage of the 2023 Palestinian-Israeli conflict by BBC and Al Jazeera English. BBC was chosen as a representation of mainstream Western global media, whereas Al Jazeera English represents a counter-flow category of global news media. Through a qualitative discourse analysis focusing on the initial phase of the conflict, differences in portrayal between BBC World News and Al Jazeera English were identified. The analysis a clear divergence in the transitivity as well as naming and referential strategies between the BBC and AJE.

This article investigates how social networking sites (SNS) usage among youth influence their wellbeing. It specifically examines the impacts of SNS from the perspective of information sharing and self-disclosure. The study subjects are students at a vocational institute in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This group was chosen due to their unique and different academic orientations compared to their private and public universities counterparts. Based on a qualitative approach, the study explores the following research objectives based on in-depth online interviews with twenty first-year students: to determine respondents' preferred SNS and how they use them, and how self-disclosure on SNS affects their well-being. The finding found three types of groups concerning the level of self-disclosure and its effect on wellbeing among youth. The first group mainly engages in passive SNS, mostly uses Instagram, and regards SNS as less meaningful but positively influences their lives. The second group engages in active social media usage but only discloses positive aspects of their daily lives. This group mainly uses Facebook and found social media meaningful and positively influenced. The third group is those who use SNS actively and express their happiness and upsetting emotional state on SNS. They are very active on Twitter and find social media very meaningful. This study shows that different individuals apply their strengths and virtues differently on SNS to adapt to different life situations. The findings found that respondents flourish under certain conditions when using SNS regardless of different levels of self-disclosure and SNS usage

Perhubungan media banyak dicorakkan oleh keupayaan pengamal perhubungan awam mengurus dan membina kerjasama bagi pihak organisasi atau klien dengan petugas media. Sangat penting untuk mereka mewujudkan dan mengatur hubungan positif dengan pihak media. Objektif makalah ini untuk menganalisis strategi-strategi berkesan dalam mengekal hubungan baik dengan petugas media dalam konteks perhubungan media di Malaysia. Dalam proses mendampingi media ini, seseorang pengamal perhubungan awam perlu mengetahui peranan dan tugas yang perlu dimainkan. Peranan dan tugas ini boleh dibahagikan kepada tiga peringkat, iaitu sebelum, semasa, dan selepas program diadakan. Semasa berlaku krisis, pengamal perhubungan awam perlu bertindak pantas dan bersiap sedia khususnya dalam menangani maklum balas dan pertanyaan pihak media dan masyarakat. Mengurus media dalam situasi krisis merupakan elemen yang sangat kritikal. Hal ini kerana pihak media amat sensitif dan berminat untuk melaporkan kejadian berbentuk krisis kerana ia adalah bahan berita yang bernilai. Terdapat beberapa strategi hubungan media yang digariskan oleh para sarjana perhubungan awam yang sesuai dipraktikkan di negara ini. Pengamal perhubungan awam harus mengambil inisiatif untuk memperkukuhkan hubungan positif dengan petugas media supaya publisiti yang dilakukan mencapai objektif organisasi atau klien.

Artikel ini membincangkan gerakan #NotInMyName yang pertama kali dimulakan oleh sekumpulan Muslim di United Kingdom pada September 2014 yang bertujuan untuk bertindak balas terhadap kumpulan ekstremis disamping menangani radikalisasi yang berlaku di dalam talian. Penulisan adalah berdasarkan kajian kes dan temubual bersama 15 peserta kajian yang terdiri daripada aktivis, ketua komuniti, imam, katib, penulis, jurucakap komuniti Muslim dan wakil organisasi Muslim di Britain. Analisis berbentuk tematik dilaporkan menerusi aspek struktur peluang (opportunity structure) dan tindakan kolektif. Dapatan kajian mendapati bahawa terdapat tiga struktur peluang utama yang memberi kesan terhadap mobilisasi sosiopolitik Muslim di Britain melalui gerakan #NotInMyName iaitu agensi Muslim dan Identiti, peranan teknologi dan media sosial serta peranan pemerintah, golongan elit dan individu berpengaruh