Author: InpressGlobal

Written by Anis Adrina Md Nor

The contemporary perception of people especially Western people towards Islam have been negative as there are a lot of media reports on Muslims’ hostile acts. During the event when there is any terrorists attack, people would immediately relate it with Muslims and Islam although the fact about the attack is unclear.

The prejudice against Muslim started even before the 9/11 attacks in the United States, however, the events and other violence actions by terrorists after that period has caused an increase in anti-Muslim attitudes in many countries. This anti-Muslim sentiment also has been contributed by the modern media framing of Islam where Muslims are pictured primarily as dangerous, hostile, threatening, and untrustworthy terrorists.

This anti-Muslim perception is also known as Islamophobia. Generally, Islamophobia as the fear of Islam or Muslims. The consistent rise of Islamophobia continues to harm global and also regional peace, security and stability by disrupting attempts to promote a multicultural approach which formed understanding, respect and tolerance of religious.

It is believed that Islamophobia has been a result of media in the Western. If we take a look at Western media, most of the contents about Islam in the entertainment media produced were mixed with insult and were broadcast globally.

The Western media are likely to characterise Islam in the negative term continuously with highlighting the terrorism, violence, extremism and antipathy with Islam to the West. In a study, it is found that from 900 Western films, Muslim characters in particular Arab were portrayed to be extremist, racist and irrational.

The agenda of insult by popular entertainment media and the impact of injury by Western news are to create hatred, humiliation and to spread propaganda against Muslim world and Islam. The case of terrorism such as the 11 September 2001 (9/11) incident which saw the terrorist group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger airplanes and launch suicide attacks upon the United States, killing almost three thousand, have led Muslims to be in the media spotlight.

Not only in Western, representation of Muslims in the Australian media has been stereotyped routinely since 2001 and this has negative influence on how non-Muslims Australian percept Islam and treat Muslims. For instance a study found that The Australian is the most frequent to identify Islam as ‘problem’ in which 30 percent of the articles in the publication portrayed Islam as a ‘problem’. Further more, in the media, Islam and violence are linked widely with the most of the emphasis are characterised by mixing the terrorism and Islam (Anderson, 2015).

Considering the media effected to the public’s mind, it can create the perception of the Western people about Islam as the mass media of the West where the journalists who cover about Muslim world possess very little information about Islam and developed a distorted image of Islam which later adopted in Western culture.

In Time magazine, there was a time where they printed a photograph of Muslim soldiers performing prayers with gun with the caption “Guns and prayer go together in the fundamentalist battle“, where the magazine did not state the fact that the Muslim soldiers were praying on a battlefield in Afghanistan.

Islamophobia is also due to the misinformation about Muslims to the Western public via the images on many forms of media and Muslims are often labelled as terrorists and this has become a usual image to public that Muslims are terrorists.

Another factor that is often to be overlooked as contributor to the rise of Islamophobia is the length of news slot that is dedicated in covering radicalisation and terrorism. Islamophobia is always discussed in the setting of the debate of how Muslims and Islams are presented in the media.

Mainstream news outlets like CNN would provide half of its airtime in an hour of news reports to discuss the Muslim violence and radicalisation. The time spent to reports on the Islam matters can influence people’s mind as it has the prim effect, where, people will think that the issue is important based on its number of reportings.

Written by: Irfarina Ahmad Nazli & Aris Abdul Rahman

Employee engagement is vital in today’s organisation. If members of a team are engaged and feel appreciated, they are less inclined to look for other employment opportunities. Fostering a culture of employee engagement can be the key to reducing turnover rates and boosting employee retention. If employees feel needed and wanted when they go to work each day, the connections they form with the company and their other coworkers are not easily eroded. By cultivating and maintaining these relationships, you reduce the risk that your employees will quit.

 

In order to understand what is comprised in employee engagement, an interview was conducted with the Operation Director at Les’ Copaque, a well-known animation company. Onn has been with the company for 4 years and manages 183 employees. He has vast experience in human resource management especially in managing personnel.

 

MANAGEMENT SKILL IN LES’ COPAQUE

 

Managing personnel is an essential skill in ensuring coordination through individual efforts. Emphasis should be on action, compared to lengthy plans and work methods. Similarly, communication and rationale personnel policies in managing personnel will direct the organisation and its people towards success.

 

Questions on managerial practices in Les’ Copaque were posed in the context of the many duties managers hold to different stakeholders of their profession, namely colleagues, subordinates, the organisation, and even themselves. His explanations matter as it allows us to understand and explore current engagement practices in a media organisation. Such disclosure may then lead to an improved framework in managing human capital, especially on how to meet employees’ psychological needs. As we know, content employees are more likely committed to their work.

 

For an employee, motivation, job satisfaction, appraisals, incentives, training and development are all determinants of personnel performance. This is the ethical view for human’s basic needs in respect to profession.

 

Being in the creative industry, Les’ Copaque not only focuses on technical skill, but also looks at individuals’ human and conceptual skills whereby ability to work in teams is combined with the ability to solve problems through an understanding of relationships among the elements. It aims to be great and at the same time, aims to help personnel develop their potential to the fullest.

 

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PRACTICED IN LES’ COPAQUE

 

Employee engagement is practiced in Les’ Copaque to ensure employees are satisfied and feel motivated to work. The approach taken by this animation company has resulted in employees giving their best each day, committed to this organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being. Employee engagement in Les’ Copaque is based on trust, integrity and two-way communication between the managerial position and the subordinates.

 

Orientation

 

Orientation in Les’ Copaque lays a foundation for new employees, a vital step in adapting to new work place, environment, and people surrounding them. First impression plays an important role when starting a new career in this animation company. Without it, new employees may feel uncomfortable in their new position and takes a longer time to reach their full potential.

 

Orientation programmes help employees gain an understanding of what is expected of them. Les’ Copaque has its own set of rules and policies regarding areas such as dress code, attendance and conduct, and the orientation process makes what is, and what is not acceptable, clear. A new employee in this company should also get a sense of the organisational culture during orientation, to have a better understanding of what they need to do to fit in more quickly. They are encouraged to socialize with people from different departments in Les’ Copaque, such as human resource and animation departments to build work relationships. By having orientation for new employees, it will indefinitely enhance employees’ engagement, making them feel like they’re a productive part of the organisation.

 

Motivating Personnel

 

Les’ Copaque emphasizes on employee motivation, or employee’s intrinsic enthusiasm in accomplishing activities related to work. All Board of Directors are called uncle and aunty. This somehow makes the de facto of authority less felt, therefore promoting an open-door culture where anyone can approach anyone, like a family would.

 

Futhermore, due to the nature of animation work, most of Les’ Copaque’s employees are glued to computer screens and long periods of sitting position every day. To release stress, the management frequently organises events with all departments. Recently, a futsal tournament was held, and prizes were given to outstanding teams. Besides sports, occasions such as ‘Family Day’ and Hari Raya celebrations are conducted yearly to familiarize employees with one another, or one’s family. These events are open to all family members of the employee.

 

Flexible working hours too is one way to motivate personnel. Though employees at Les’ Copaque are required to complete 8 hours of work daily, working time arrangements depend on the individual itself. He/she can come to work at any time before 10 a.m. This helps them maintain a work/life balance and shoulder family responsibilities better.

 

Performance review

 

Performance review or appraisal means employees are evaluated on a yearly basis in terms of their achievement and opportunities for career development. It is a documented evaluation, where strengths and weaknesses of an employee is addressed.

 

At Les’ Copaque, the Board of Directors measure personnel performance using Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Their KPI is based on punctuality, attitude towards work and members of the organisation, and their contribution to the department. While overtime is not an encouraged business practice in Les’ Copaque, any employee that performs will receive a bonus.

 

Hiring process

 

The Internet era has revolutionized the hiring process at Les’ Copaque. Based on the information of the interview, everything is done online. Les’ Copaque posts job vacancies through its Facebook pages; Les’ Copaque Production Sdn. Bhd. and Les’ Copaque Animation Academy, and through its YouTube channel; Les’ Copaque Production. Alternatively, an outsource company such as www.jobcari.com will also be used as a medium to advertise their job vacancy. Part of the skill required is for the candidates to have experience using Maya Autodesk, an animation software widely used in Les’ Copaque’s animation company.

 

As for voice over talents, individuals are recruited through Instagram. People who are interested to apply as a voice over artist need to display their creativity and talent through the social media site. From there, the Board of Directors at Les’ Copaque will sit together to evaluate and select potential applicants. Once the shortlisted list is ready, then only will the company call these applicants for an interview. This method saves the animation company a lot of money, time, and manpower needed in dealing with the hiring process.

 

Managing dispute

 

It is good business practice to create a workplace that encourages all employees to express ideas and efficient ways of doing things. Effectively managing this process will prevent future damaging conflicts between employees. According to the interviewee, if there are complaints regarding their work load, personnel members will need to refer to an immediate chain of command, such as a supervisor, or according to the order of authority of the company. If the immediate supervisor could not solve this dispute, then only will the case be escalated to someone of a higher managerial position. This chain of command promotes the idea of respect and trust towards their supervisor.

 

Written by Nurhanis binti Hazry

The contribution of Internet in the development of news reporting highlighted as the starting point in the scope of online journalism. Online journalism is defined as generating reports by using Internet (web) networking. As stated by Bardoel (1996), Internet helps in boosting the profession of online journalist as it offers the vast array of resources in democracy superfluous. It offers the endless technological possibilities to work with, instead of creates its own type of journalism on the Net, which is called as digital or online reporting (Singer, 1998).

Before the advent of these platforms, only radio and news channels are the most basic sources of news reporting. But now, with the aid of Internet capabilities, journalists capture and send it lively. More content related to any recent incidents can be found on the web faster than radio and television channels. Previous studies show that the use of digital assets including mobile phones and social networking sites expend to large level producing finer and better online stories (Nicole, 2014).

Interactivity, convergence and customisation of content are the key characteristics of news reporting on the Net. By putting together all these keys of the widespread use and availability of the Internet, the outcome seems to be the core competences and functions for online journalism. As stated by Deuze (2000), online journalism refers to the gathering and distributing original news content on the Internet. The definition of online journalism and indeed journalism posed journalists throughout the history of journalism studies.

Online journalism differentiated functionally from other kinds of journalism by the term of technological components. It acts as a determining factor of specific meaning under particular technological conditions. The advent of multimedia interactivity will inevitably impact the factors on how the online journalism gets done. Thus, the more and more gathering and disseminating of updated information will be putting the distribution of online news in the journalistic core function (Fulton, 1996).

As Castells et. al (2004) explains, accessing online news has gained a new transaction in public’s daily routine. In general, legacy of online news developed news provision by customizing online journalistic content published at the web applications. The development of Internet with advanced of network connectivity published the news stories, photos and videos straight from the field, making the news production process faster and more efficient.

As standard online journalism is trending at increased rate, readers appreciate online news by providing them to search for particular news in a few seconds. The high resolution of visual affects online readers believing the content as it to be coming from trustful sources. The innovation and integration of Internet offers advantages of online reporting over the old methods.

References:

1. Bardoel, J. (1996). Beyond Journalism. A Profession between Information Society and Civil Society. European Journal of Communication 11 (3): 283-302.

 

2. Fulton, K. (1996). A tour of our uncertain future. Columbia Journalism Review.

 

3. Nicole, C. (2014). Revolutionizing the Newsroom: How Online and Mobile Technologies have changed broadcast journalism. The Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communication, 5: 1-3.

 

4. Singer, J. (1998). Online Journalists: Foundations for Research into Their Changing Roles. The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4 (1).

Written by Amni Ahmad

Malaysia is a very unique country. There are a lot of interesting culture and traditions that can be shared with the world. However, many Malaysians are still not familiar with the traditional folk arts in the country. Apart from traditional dance, traditional theatre is also one of the arts that should be promoted so that people will get to know more about the Malay culture and learn to appreciate it. Examples of traditional theatre are Mak Yong, Bangsawan, Mek Mulung, Main Puteri, and Barongan. Continue reading “The Uniqueness of Traditional Malay Theatre”