THE ROLE OF POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION ON FACEBOOK AMONG MALAYSIAN CHINESE

The Barisan Nasional (BN), Malaysia's dominant coalition party that has ruled since 1957, lost the 14th general election. Various analyses were conducted, and many discussions centred on Chinese voters who had switched to opposition, Pakatan Harapan, and rejected BN entirely. This situation raises an interesting discussion about what prompted Chinese voters to make drastic changes in this ethnic-based country's politics. This study, therefore, focuses on whether political socialization in social media will build a political opportunity for Malaysian Chinese. In investigating how social media propaganda can provide Malaysian Chinese a political viewpoint, these studies argue that the internet and social media have led to unparalleled complexity in Malaysia's political socialization process. A bottom-up, constructivist approach is used to decide how social media played their position as Malaysian political socializers.

INTER-CULTURAL MARITAL RELATIONSHIP: RECRUITING PARTICIPANTS FROM BANGLADESHI COMMUNITY

Inter-cultural marriage is increasingly common in many societies, yet inter-cultural relationships remain at a higher risk of failure, with higher divorce rates and lower marital satisfaction. The present study analyzed a growing phenomenon in Bangladesh and Malaysia known as intercultural or mixed families. The main objective was to explore challenge associated with inter-cultural relationships, and to determine how these relate to marital satisfaction among foreign partners in inter-cultural families. This study explores five inter-cultural married couples’ experiences using a qualitative inquiry. In this study, we demonstrated the condition of inter-cultural married couples by examining their challenges with respect to inter-cultural adjustment, religious practice, and parental commitment.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR POLITICAL CAMPAIGN COMMUNICATION AND ITS IMPACT ON POLITICAL POLARIZATION AMONG YOUTHS IN UGANDA

The current study is aimed at examining the use of social media for political communication and its impact on the political polarization of youths in Uganda. The study specifically focuses on determining social media platforms that are often used by youths in Uganda, find out the levels of social media usage, political campaign communication, and political polarization among youths in Uganda as a result of social media usage. Lastly, the study also focuses on determining the relationship between social media platforms, social media usage, political communication, and political polarization amongst youths in Ugandans. The study adopts the uses and gratifications theory to help in guiding the study and explaining the available relationships between the variables of the study. A quantitative research design and survey method with a questionnaire as the tool for data collection were used in this study. 192 valid responses were extracted from youths residing in Kampala and Wakiso districts in Uganda as the respondents of the study. The findings of the study reveal that youths in Uganda often use Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram while looking for political-related information to help them form a decision on who to give their support in the election. In addition, the study also reveals that the more the youths look for such political information, the more they become polarized because all the politicians just feed them with information that is divisive and there exists a huge amount of hatred as a result of the consumption of such information on the Ugandan internet space. The uses and gratifications theory is also supported in the study.

THE BATTLE OF THREE POLITICAL REGIMES IN MALAYSIA PRIOR AND POST GE 14TH: AN ANALYSIS OF BARISAN NASIONAL, PAKATAN HARAPAN & THE FORMATION OF PERIKATAN NASIONAL (PN)

This chapter discusses the battle of the three political regimes in Malaysia, the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH), in the 14th General Election and the formation of Perikatan Nasional (PN) after the collapse of the PH government. The BN coalition has shown its political influence throughout 63 years of ruling the country since independence which has been hard to break by other opposition parties in Malaysia. BN has manipulated various government instruments in ruling to form a strong political hegemony that affects the voting behaviour of voters in determining rational choice, especially when elections are conducted. However, the strong political domination has been broken by the opposition movement that began in the 12th General Election that eventually toppled the old political regime, BN in the last GE-14. The failure of BN to defend its position as a government is due to several factors including scandals and misuse of power by political leaders, the weaknesses of the government in addressing economic issues, and pressures faced by the people on the cost of living, and limited employment opportunities. Issues that arise are then manipulated by the opposition parties at the same time, which managed to convince voters to change their support from BN to PH in the last GE-14. However, PH, which then had the opportunity to govern the country with a dilemma, as it failed to capitalize on the opportunity and fulfilled its manifesto as promised in their election campaigns. Subsequently, Malaysians, especially the voters in a series of by-election have begun to send a message to the government by voting for opposition candidates as a gesture of protest against the PH government. Furthermore, an analysis of the developments and dilemmas of the direction of the two political regimes before and after the GE-14 is discussed in detail in this chapter.

A MIXED-METHOD EVALUATION OF THE FINANCIAL AID SYSTEM FOR DISABLED PERSONS IN MALAYSIA

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, one poignant issue hotly discussed is the social protection of the citizens, especially financial aid for poor and marginalized groups. Regardless of the recent increase in the amount of financial aid for certain sets of disabled persons in Malaysia, the present study interrogates broader structural issues and implications concerning the financial aid system for disabled persons as a whole. This study draws its data from a content analysis of the eligibility criteria of selected financial aid programs and feedback from the grassroots community. Most respondents from the online survey admit that they still need financial aid to sustain their survival. They also agree that the current financial aid system needs to be changed. In determining the financial aid amount, the top three determinants are having a chronic illness, the number of dependants, and employment status. Equally notable, most respondents disagree with gender as one of the determinants. The content analysis, on the other hand, reveals that few requirements and the overall financial aid model no longer reflect the current situation. In each financial aid program, there exist direct and indirect layers of biopower. Policies on financial aid for disabled persons and the social protection system, in general, must be revamped. At the end of this article, multi-pronged solutions are discussed.

INCREASING THRIVING AT WORK THROUGH WORKPLACE SPIRITUALITY AMONG GOVERNMENT SERVANT IN PENANG, MALAYSIA

Creating sustainable performance emerged as a crucial issue for any profit and non-profit organization. In this complex and competitive environment, organizations should play a better role in encouraging their employees to thrive at work. Existing evidence from various industries confirmed that thriving at work contributed to organizational performance and helps to mitigate problems such as stress and turnover. This study relied on the socially embedded model to unravel the connection between meaningful work, sense of community, organizational values, and thriving at work. Survey data were gathered from government officers attached from four local government institutions in Malaysia. The analysis employed in the study were Descriptive, Pearson correlation, and Multiple Regression. The study found that thriving positively relates to meaningful work. However, the results surprisingly revealed that a sense of community and organizational values were not significantly related to thriving at work. Interpretations of results, implications, and future research are discussed. Thus, this study will benefit organizations as well as academic researchers.

THE INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING VALUE ON ATTITUDE TOWARD POLITICAL ADVERTISING IN SOCIAL MEDIA AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Over the past few years, many studies have conducted to examine the effect of advertising value on attitude toward advertising. Advertising value has proven that it has a strong relationship with attitude toward advertising. With the expansion of the media, advertising has been using as part of the political tools. Hence, this research paper will discuss how advertising values influence attitudes toward advertising from a political advertising perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyses the influence of advertising value on attitude toward political advertising among Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) students and their perceptions toward the value of advertising. This study used a quantitative method. An online survey was used in this study and distributed through Google Form among UUM and USM students. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 was used to analyses the collected data. The results found that advertising value variables significantly influence the attitude toward political advertising. Therefore, this study hopes to help future researchers to understand how advertising value in political advertising can give an impact on attitude toward political advertising. Thus, this study can help other researchers as a guideline in exploring other variables for advertising value in political advertising perspective.

RELATIONSHIP OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP TOWARDS ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR (OCB) AND JOB SATISFACTION AMONG TEACHERS: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This paper examines the relationship between servant leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, and job satisfaction among school teachers. The first objective of the study is to explore the history, concept, and development of servant leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, and job satisfaction. The second objective is to determine previous related studies that reveal the relationship between these 3 theories towards teachers throughout the world. The third objective of the study is to focus on the relationship study between these 3 theories in the Malaysian education system. As a conclusion, this study will provide the researcher's views on why this study should be featured in the Malaysian education system.

ATTRIBUTES OF STUDENT LEADERS IN IIUM TOWARDS VOTING

Leadership is an essential aspect that people and communities worldwide depend on to make important decisions. The core function of leaders is to aid and support their followers to accomplish a common goal. The International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) has been voting student leaders since its inception. These student leaders help in the administration of student affairs in several aspects. This study aims to examine the attributes of IIUM student leaders towards voting. Specifically, it aims to determine the relationships of qualities, characteristics, important ideal qualities of student leaders, and Islamic principles of leaders with voting in IIUM. The study utilizes the great man’s theory of leadership to explain the relationships between the variables. The quantitative research design and survey method with a questionnaire as the tool for data collection were used in this research. A total of 327 IIUM students participated in this study. The findings of the study reveal that students look at their leaders in a positive and motivating way. They view the leaders as consistently performing an excellent leadership job and have good values through different characteristics, with important qualities and Islamic leadership principles. Additionally, students tend to consider both inbuilt and external attributes while voting for their leaders to be in power. The findings also show the presence of significant relationships among the variables of the study. The great man’s theory is also supported in this study.

EVALUATING THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE IN KAP MODEL ON SELF-PREVENTIVE HEALTHCARE: EVIDENCE FROM TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS IN MALAYSIA

Malaysia aims to end the Tuberculosis (TB) epidemic by the year 2035. However, to ensure a successful program for TB control, it is still a challenge to instil good self-preventive healthcare among patients. Therefore, the study seeks to address the knowledge gap among TB patients and their level of prevention practices which have not been studied extensively in Malaysia. Using questionnaires, this cross-sectional study was conducted among 1606 registered TB patients in selected states of Malaysia from May 2014 to March 2015. General knowledge of TB among TB patients was high - patients from Penang, who resided in suburban areas and self-employed revealed to have high TB knowledge than the others. Thus, by identifying how TB patients view their transmission risk and prevention, practices may contribute to an improved future screening option and enhanced education efforts for medical practitioners to develop more customized programs for TB patients.