Md. Salleh Hassan

The importance of smartphone's usage among Malaysian undergraduates

Since its debut, smartphone had been steadily replacing the existence of the conventional mobile phone. The change was well accepted and proven by the smartphones’ surging sales throughout these years. Furthermore, smartphone become a necessity to universities students. Apart from allowing them to socially interact with others, it also can entertain as well as provide platform to search for information. Nowadays the smartphone could also be use to channel its owners’ personality. This research implies that pattern of smartphone’s usage was categories into four typologies that includes Information, Personal Identity, Integration and Social Interaction, and Entertainment. With data from 385 undergraduate students from public and private university in Malaysia, the researcher was able to conclude that the usage for personal identity was important to them. The results were able to clarify the students’ interest over their smartphone and confirm its popularity among youngsters.

Audience participation in radio development programmes: A study of radio seremban, a Malaysian local radio station

Among the methods adopted to accelerate rural quality of life in Malaysia is a continuous dissemination of development messages to the people. The local radio stations in the country are expected to be effective sources for the rural populations participation in radio for development. To what extent do the rural audience participate in the local radio development programmes? What factors are associated with audience participation in the radio development programmes? And what problems militate against audience participation? This study focused on audience participation in one of the local radio stations—Seremban Radio. The findings indicate that participation in terms of radio listenership was very high, feedback very low and audiences involvement in radio programme production was even lower. Five variables were found to be significant predictors of audience participation.

Research on the State of Social Media Studies in Malaysia: 2004-2015

In the recent years, the advancement of social media plays a phenomenal role in the Malaysia’s media and academic landscape. Social media has garnered massive adoption among the online population, paving way for scholars to understand on the usage and impact of social media on the users in the country. The rising numbers of research on social media illustrate a growing interest on this phenomenon. Despite the budding interest among scholars, the understanding on the research patterns and status on social media studies in Malaysia is still inadequate, comparing with the research trends analyses in the West. This paper investigated the trends of social media research in Malaysia from 2004 to 2015. A quantitative content analysis were conducted on 79 articles in 21 selected academic journals in identifying the methodological approach, theoretical application, topical, social media type, type of content and research developmental phases of social media scholarship. Findings revealed social media research in Malaysia is still in formative stage but increasing throughout the years. Unlike findings from past analyses, theory-driven articles in Malaysia were more prevalent than theoretical presence in the West. Nonetheless, Malaysian scholars still lack in conceptualisation and expansion of theories. The study suggests for a more explicit theoretical foundation and technology advancement in the future research. This study also suggests that future scholarly endeavours should have better methodological rigour and wider dispersion of social media medium and content type.