The Impact of Social Media's Women Empowerment Messages of Gender Role Ideology: a Malaysia Context

Ong, Jia Ching (2024) The Impact of Social Media's Women Empowerment Messages of Gender Role Ideology: a Malaysia Context. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

This research investigates the impact of exposure to women empowerment content on social media and its influence on gender roles ideology among Malaysian social media users. Social media emerged as a platform to promote gender equality, hence this research seeks to examine Malaysian exposure to women empowerment content and how much exposure could affect their attitudes towards gender roles. By applying cultivation theory, this research aims to explore the relationship between social media, women empowerment and changes in gender role ideology. This study utilises quantitative research methods by distributing questionnaires and targeted 100 social media users aged between 18-40 in the Klang Valley area. The findings intended to understand Malaysian perspectives on women empowerment and do the exposure towards women empowerment content on social media transform their gender roles ideology from traditional to transitional or egalitarian. The study concludes that while social media exposure is crucial in shaping attitudes toward women empowerment, its influence on gender role ideology remains complex, it can be influenced by other sociocultural factors including gender and races. The result findings highlight there is a strong correlation between the attitude of women empowerment and gender roles ideology, indicating the increase of positive attitude towards women empowerment content, the more egalitarian gender roles ideology. This findings is well supported by cultivation theory where social media has been proven to have a strong influence on Malaysians’ women empowerment attitude and gender roles ideology. The results show Malaysians, especially young adults, are becoming more egalitarian gender roles ideology, while Chinese tend to be more egalitarian compared to Indian and Malay due to cultural norms and Islamic values. The findings could provide insights into how online platforms could shape the gender roles ideology in Malaysia and offer implication for public relations practitioners to work towards gender roles ideology.