The Relationship between Uses of Social Media and Ethno-Religious Affection in Malaysia = 말레이시아의 소셜 미디어 사용과 민족 종교적인 감정간의 관계

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 연구의 주요 목적은 설문조사를 통해서 소셜 미디어의 사용이 외집단 구성원들에 대한 부정적인 감정을 드러내는 것인지의 여부를 조사하며 성격특성 중 인지적 종결욕구 (Need for Cognitive Closure, NFCC)에 미치는 영향을 파악하는 것이다. 말레이시아인 소셜 미디어 사용자 204명을 대상으로 그들의 소셜 미디어 내에 상호작용, 콘텐츠 소비 및 생산 패턴 등을 조사하였다. 그 결과는 사람들이 여전히 인종과 종교에 따라 외집단보다 내집단에게 호감을 더 나타내고 있었다. 또한 소셜 미디어에서 활동 빈도는, 특히 콘텐츠 생산과 외집단에게 준 감정 점수(affective scores)를 서로 부정적인 상관성을 발견하였다. 그리고 말레이시아에 소수 민족은 주류인 말레이인에 비해 자신들이 차별을 더 많이 받고 있다고 인식했다. 소셜 미디어 사용자들의 인종이나 정치색, 가치관 등이 같은 부류끼리의 상호작용은 빈도 더 높게 나오는 현상은 에코챔버 (echo chamber, 반향실 현상) 또는 필터버블 (filter bubble)을 말레이시아 소셜 미디어권에서도 나타난 것으로 보인다. 인지적 종결욕구가 전체에서 일관된 영향을 미치지 못하며, 사용자들의 상호작용 패턴이나 감정 점수(affective scores)와도 관련성은 약한 것으로 나타났다. 그러나 말레이 무슬림 샘플의 경우 외집단과 긍정적인 접촉이 감정 점수(affective scores)에 긍정적인 상관 관계에 있음을 보여주었다. 이로써 본 연구는 연구의 한계에도 불구하고 인종 관계, 소셜 미디어, 뉴스 매체에 대한 몇 가지 이해를 안겨주며 향후 유사한 연구의 도움이 되기를 바란다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The current research aims to study whether social media usage contributes to unfavourable attitudes towards outgroup members through a survey, examining the personality trait represented by Need for Cognitive Closure (NFCC). 204 Malaysian social media users’ interaction, consumption and production patterns on social media were examined to provide an overview of the Malaysians’ social media usage. Results revealed that people do still perceive ingroup member significantly more favourable than outgroup members in terms of ethnicity and religion. Frequency of activities on social media, especially content production was found to correlate negatively with affective scores towards each community group. In addition, minority ethnic groups also perceived themselves to be significantly more discriminated compared to the Malays. The more frequent interaction with other users who are from the same ethnic group, supporting the same political party, sharing the same view, suggests the possible existence of echo chambers or bubble filters among Malaysian users on social media. NFCC did not seem to exert a consistent effect across different sample groups and was shown to have weak relationship with interaction pattern and affective scores. Nevertheless, positive outgroup members contact was found to correlate positively with affective scores towards outgroup members for the Malay Muslim samples. The current research, despite its limitations, manage to offer several insights into racial relations, social media interaction as well as news media and provides a starting point for future similar research to take place.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. Introduction 1
• A. Background 1
• B. Democracy in retreat 4
• 1) Deliberative Democracy on the Internet: Are we there yet 6
• C. Politics and Racial Relations in Malaysia 9
• 1) Ruling strategy and political system 9
• 2) Ethno-nationalist Affirmative Policies 11
• 3) Political Rivalry between UMNO and PAS 13
• 4) Turning Points 13
• 5) Post 14th GE politics: Malay-Muslim Nationalism 16
• D. Political Polarization and Ethnic Relations 17
• 1) Ratifications of international treaties 20
• 2) Education System 21
• 3) Racialization of the issues 22
• 2. Literature Review 25
• A. Information Technology and Post-Truth era 25
• 1) Defining Social Media 27
• 2) Theorizing Social Medias Effect 28
• 3) Social Media and the landscape of journalism 30
• 4) Filter Bubbles and Echo Chamber 34
• 5) Expressions on Social Media 36
• B. Users Attributes 40
• 1) Formation of Political Opinion: Two-step Flow Model of Communication 40
• 2) Need for Cognitive Closure: The Personality Trait 41
• 3) Intergroup Contact Theory 43
• C. Internet and Social Media in Malaysia 43
• 1) New Media and Contentious Movement 44
• 2) Environment on the Social Media in Malaysia. 46
• 3) Social media related regulations. 48
• 4) Social media research in Malaysia. 48
• D. Research Questions 51
• 3. Research Methodology 53
• A. Operational Definition of Variables 54
• B. Instruments. 55
• C. Deception 57
• D. Pilot Test 57
• 1) Procedure 57
• E. Data Collection 59
• 1) Procedure 59
• 2) Sampling 60
• 4. Results 61
• A. Preferred News Platform 61
• B. Trust on Media 63
• C. Social Media Usage 64
• 1) Consumption and Production of Content on Social Media 66
• 2) Interaction Pattern on Social Media 68
• 3) Key Opinion Leader (KOL) 69
• D. Affection towards Ingroup and Outgroup Members 71
• 1) Relationship between Consumption and Production and Affective Scores 73
• 2) Perception of Discrimination, Discrimination in Reality and Positive Outgroup Contact 75
• E. Need for Cognitive Closure (NFCC) 79
• 1) Content Consumption and Type of Interactions 79
• 2) Affective Scores towards Ingroup and Outgroup Members 80
• F. Effect of Positive Contact with Outgroup Members 81
• 5. Conclusion and Discussion 83
• A. Findings and Conclusion 83
• B. Discussions 85
• 1) Limitations of current research 90
• 2) Future Research 92
• 초록 95
• References 97