Social Media and Racial Unity : a View on Manifestation of Racial Unity in Malaysian Everyday Life Under the Use of Social Media

Lek, Shey Lin (2019) Social Media and Racial Unity : a View on Manifestation of Racial Unity in Malaysian Everyday Life Under the Use of Social Media. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

The research is intend to study on the degree of effect as to how online environment engagement and interaction between ethnic will contribute to the offline ethnic relation in Malaysia among the three major ethnics, which are Malay, Chinese and Indian. The main concept behind such research topic is due to the observation that despite the nation has gained independence for more than six decades, ethnic issue is still a hot topic among Malaysian and ethnic conflict arise from time to time until today. In addition, it is especially easier to spread and expand the conflict with social media at everyone’s fingertips. Therefore, this research is determined to find out to what extent the online world will affect racial harmony in Malaysia in terms of daily interaction and perception towards other ethnics based on what ethnic related content Malaysian are exposed to online. On methodology, triangulation approach is being used where 50 quantitative surveys are distributed among 30 Malays, 15 Chinese and 5 Indians, while 6 qualitative personal interviews are conducted with 3 Malays, 2 Chinese and 1 Indians on a voluntarily basis in which the interviewees will have to also participate in the quantitative survey to be qualified, both approaches are carried out as accordance to quota sampling method. At the same time, the social media platform targeted in this research is Facebook as it is the most used social networking site in Malaysia. From the result collected, it shows that regardless of the negative ethnic content Malaysian exposed to on Facebook, it will not affect their relationship with other ethnic in the offline world in terms of interaction and engagement as it is believed that ethnic harmony shall not be disrupted in country like Malaysia even if there is contrary opinion between ethnic on an ethnic issue.