Conference presentation

1. Muhammad Raqib Mohd Sofian,
School of Communication
Universiti Sains Malaysia
11800, Penang, Malaysia
ISLAM IS BEING CHALLENGED
AND THREATENED? A STUDY ON
THE NEWS COVERAGE BY
UTUSAN MALAYSIA ON THE
ISSUE OF COMANGO

2. INTRODUCTION
 In recent years, Malaysia has been embroiled with
religious conflicts that cause fractions among its citizens.
Most of the conflicts involved Islam which is generally
known as the official religion of the country.
 Overall, a total of 60% that represents majority of the
Malaysian populations are Malay Muslims, while the
remaining consists of other ethnics which include
Chinese, Indians, and the indigenous people of Sabah
and Sarawak.
 In regard to this matter, the minorities tend to have
the thoughts that they were marginalized by the
previous government policies imposed on them.
 There were assumptions that the previous
government which was controlled by UMNO (the
most dominant party which represents the Malay
Muslim in Malaysia) always tend to bias to Islam and

3.  Mass media especially the newspapers have been
regarded as a powerful tool in disseminating
information to the population. Apart from that, it is
also known to have a strong influence on the mind of
individuals in regard to its reporting on a particular
issue.
 However, it should be understood that they can
either help to maintain good relations or cause more
harm among the citizens. Hence, it is deemed very
important to study the news that has been reported
by the media to the populace, especially in the
Malaysian context that is widely known to consist of
multi ethnics and religions.

4. Objective
 Therefore, this paper aims to study how a
controversial issue was reported by Utusan
Malaysia as a Malay mainstream newspaper in
Malaysia, which in the context of the present
study refers to the Comango issue.
 As has been mentioned, this study is deemed
very important in order to investigate the role
played by the media in reporting controversial
issue, especially involving Islam. In relation to
this, it is highly relevant to conduct a research
involving Islam in the Malaysian context
considering that Islam has been widely viewed
with suspicion and prejudice by the world due to

5. Case study
 COMANGO stands for Coalition of Malaysian NGOs in the UPR
Process. There are 54 organisations that are part of the coalition.
Among them are: All Women’s Action Society (AWAM), Centre for
Independent Journalism (CIJ), Voice of the Children (VOC), Yayasan
Chow Kit, and Persatuan Guru-Guru Tadika.
 According to their facebook page, COMANGO participates in the
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process conducted by the United
Nations Human Rights Council. They have sent a report in 2013 to the
United Nations regarding the state of human rights in Malaysia that has
been used to review Malaysia during the Universal Periodic Review
process.
 Amongst the issues in the report were the administration of justice,
expression and participation, indigenous and migrant’s rights, and
discrimination involving sexual orientation and race.
 There has been some anti-COMANGO sentiment from religious groups
such as Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (ISMA) who launched a campaign
called ‘Sejuta Ummah Tolak Comango’. They claim that COMANGO is
spreading Western “liberalism” teachings contrary to traditional Islamic
teachings.

6. Newspaper ownership and
readership in Malaysia
 Media Prima, the media investment wing of the United
Malays National Organisation (UMNO)—the dominant
party in the BN coalition—controlled several of the
nation’s biggest newspapers market. Its 2013 fourth
quarter report boasts that it has the largest reach in
terms of newspaper readership and circulation in
Peninsular Malaysia. Media Prima controls the New
Straits Times (English language) as well as Harian
Metro and Berita Harian (BM). UMNO also holds
controlling shares in the Utusan Group,which owns
Utusan, a daily BM publication widely perceived as an
UMNO mouthpiece, as well as Kosmo! (daily) and
several weeklies (Tessa Houghton, 2014).
 Thus, among the political economy scholars in
Malaysia, they concluded that the major newspapers
in Malaysia before the 2018 election, tended to report
that bias to the policies made by the previous
government.

7. Methodology
 The present study employed quantitative +
qualitative approach in its investigation regarding the
nature of news coverage on unilateral conversion
controversy in Malaysia produced by a local
mainstream English newspaper.
 The method adopted in the present study involved
performing an analysis on the written texts in the
newspaper for the purpose of obtaining a full
understanding on how the issue was covered and
reported.
 Apart from that, the present study also carried out an
analysis on the news narratives in order to
understand how the issue was constructed and
portrayed by the newspaper.
 A total of three-month samples was collected from
the month of October, 2013 to March, 2018 which

8. Why Utusan Malaysia?
 Utusan Malaysia is one of the top Malay
newspapers in the country that targets Malay
readers.
 According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations
Malaysia and Ac Nielsen in 2015, the average
daily circulation of Utusan Malaysia was 503,592
copies, thus making it the highest number of
daily circulated in the country.
 More importantly, Utusan Malaysia has always
been singled out for evoking racial tension
between the Malays and non-Malays, supported
the status quo and was heavily linked with
UMNO.
 It would be very interesting to investigate how
Utusan Malaysia portrayed and covered the issue
since it was regarded as a “tool” for the previous
regime to propagate their propaganda

9. Result and Discussion (Preliminary result)
In general, it was found that Utusan Malaysia published
130 articles regarding the issue.
Type of news articles.
Types of news articles Total (%)
Regular news 99 (76.2)
Columns 11 (8.5)
Feature articles 19 (14.6)
Interview 1 (0.8)

10. Sources used by Utusan Malaysia
News source Total (%)
Ruling government
Leaders
24 (18.5)
Opposition leaders 6 (4.6)
Islamic NGO
representatives
31 (23.8)
Liberal Islamic NGO 1(0.8)
Islamic Scholars 3 (2.3)
Editor/ author’s
opinion
14 (10.8)
General Public 1 (0.8)
Islamic Lawyers
Association
3 (2.3)
Muslim UPRO 30 (23.1)
Comango
representatives
3 (2.3)
Multiple sources 4 (3.1)
Other NGOs 3 (2.3)

11. Slant of the news
Slant Total (%)
Supportive 0
Critical 119 (85.4)
Neutral 11 (14.6)

12. Themes
Basically, there are several themes that have been discussed by Utusan
Malaysia.
• Urged the government to do not bow down to the demands by the
COMANGO.
• Criticized the demands by COMANGO and deemed them as trying to
challenge the Malay Muslims community.
• Urged all Muslims nationwide to reject Comango's demands.
• Suggestions on how to overcome Comango’s threats.
• UMNO will always fight for Islam and Malays in Malaysia.