Abstract: Incessant reports on a particular issue leads the content of news towards sensationalism. Global media outlets tempt to sensationalize news stories aimed to gain more revenues and higher ratings for the sake of fame, viewership, reputation and completion with other news media agencies. The notable point is, with sensationalized report not only the integrity of the news agencies is under question, also the reliability of news content will be downgraded. Thus, this tendency has paved the way to the changes in the perception among people by making their judgments ambiguous and invalid. In particular, Malaysia is a place where people from various sects and religions live in harmony and peace. Small portion of negative beliefs or unreliable reports on any religions or group can endanger the peace process in the nation. Therefore, this paper investigated the perception of Malaysian non-Muslims towards media reliability coverage concerning Islam and Muslims. The result indicates that non-Muslims in Malaysia are well informed on the content quality and reliability of the news reports. Therefore, what have been reported by various international news agencies on Muslims and Islam is in contradiction with the perceptions of non-Muslims in Malaysia. Non-Muslims Malaysian perspective on Islam and Muslims reflects a positive image that shows Muslims as, cooperative, non-extremist, non-interfering and tolerance.
Keywords: Sensationalism, News, Islam representation, Reliability, Media reports.
Title: Sensationalism in Media: Perspective of Non-Muslim Malaysians towards Reliability of Media Content
Author: Ali Parvin
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3164 (online), ISSN 2348-3156 (Print)
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