This research study investigated the conceptions of press freedom from the Islamic perspective. It examined how certain segments of Malaysian society, including government officers, religious leaders, members of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and members of political parties, perceive press freedom in their country. Compared to previous studies on media freedom or press freedom in Malaysia, this study offered a comprehensive analysis of variables significantly related to the conceptualisation and practice of press freedom, which include economic development, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and globalisation. One significant difference between this study and previous studies was the specific examination of Islamic conceptions of press freedom, which represents a major contribution to existing knowledge. As Malaysia is a complex multi-racial and multi-religious nation, factors such as national ideologies and cultural values were addressed when examining conceptions of press freedom. Due to the focus of the study, two types of framework were utilised: an Islamic theoretical framework and media theories developed by Western scholars. Methodologically, this study employed an ethnographic approach for analysing Islamic conceptualisations of press freedom. A combination of three qualitative research techniques - in-depth face-to-face interviews, examination of archival documents, and personal observations - was utilised to investigate the issues identified in relation to perceptions of press freedom in Malaysia. In-depth face-to-face interviews involved the participation of staff and members from ten organisations and individuals who were not affiliated with these organisations. The organisations involved in this study were: Ministry of Internal Security Malaysia (MOIS); Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (IKIM); Islamic Da’wah Foundation Malaysia (YADIM); Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM); Pertubuhan Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM); Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ); Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM); Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), People’s Justice Party (PKR); and Puteri UMNO. The archival documents analysed in this study were gathered from these ten organisations. However, due to certain organisational policies and security concerns, personal observations were only conducted at eight organisations, IKIM, YADIM, ABIM, JIM, CIJ, SUARAM, PAS and PKR. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results of the data analysis were triangulated to ascertain the extent to which the information obtained was consistent or inconsistent across sources. The findings of the study showed that there were diverse views among respondents on what constitutes an Islamic press freedom in a multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia. Due to the different levels of Islamic understanding and divergent interpretations of Islam among Muslims, especially among members of political parties, this study also found that the Islamic theory of press freedom is a highly contested concept. More often than not, the respondents of these organisations claimed that Islamic conceptualisations of press freedom should be based on their personal versions of Islam.

No description available.

Comic books are one of the many popular cultural forms that attract, as part of their audience, a committed readership that engages in a participatory relationship as part of a shared interest in the text. In common with other media forms, this engagement expresses itself in a variety of ways, including interaction with other readers online and face-to-face at conventions, correspondence with producers, and the creation of textual products. Other features of the discourses and practices of this community may be more specific to the comic book readership. One of the most interesting of these is a participatory belief, widely expressed by readers, that they can influence the story content of the published comic book and that comic books are unique among other media forms in this. In this thesis, I investigate several aspects of this belief, in order to offer a more nuanced understanding of the participatory involvement that readers have in comic books, particularly the superhero comic books that dominate American comic book culture. First, I examine whether this participatory belief is supported by evidence from published comic books by undertaking a content analysis of the letter columns and story pages of comic books. Next, I explore the discourses of online comic book culture that relate to authorship and the boundaries of participation and show how the rules of textual engagement that are held by readers shape the interactions between readers and producers. Finally, I look for alternative participatory spaces that are available to comic book readers, finding these in a contested form of engagement with comic books, that of exploring the fictional universes of the text. This approach imagines the text as the representation of a non-actual world, to which the comic book is an incomplete window. Theorising this mode of engagement leads to a conceptualisation of participation that makes visible a participatory space that has been previously overlooked by academic fan studies, and that complicates the existing models of participatory culture.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This research study investigated the conceptions of press freedom from the Islamic perspective. It examined how certain segments of Malaysian society, including government officers, religious leaders, members of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and members of political parties, perceive press freedom in their country. Compared to previous studies on media freedom or press freedom in Malaysia, this study offered a comprehensive analysis of variables significantly related to the conceptualisation and practice of press freedom, which include economic development, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and globalisation. One significant difference between this study and previous studies was the specific examination of Islamic conceptions of press freedom, which represents a major contribution to existing knowledge. As Malaysia is a complex multi-racial and multi-religious nation, factors such as national ideologies and cultural values were addressed when examining conceptions of press freedom. Due to the focus of the study, two types of framework were utilised: an Islamic theoretical framework and media theories developed by Western scholars. Methodologically, this study employed an ethnographic approach for analysing Islamic conceptualisations of press freedom. A combination of three qualitative research techniques - in-depth face-to-face interviews, examination of archival documents, and personal observations - was utilised to investigate the issues identified in relation to perceptions of press freedom in Malaysia. In-depth face-to-face interviews involved the participation of staff and members from ten organisations and individuals who were not affiliated with these organisations. The organisations involved in this study were: Ministry of Internal Security Malaysia (MOIS); Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (IKIM); Islamic Da’wah Foundation Malaysia (YADIM); Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM); Pertubuhan Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM); Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ); Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM); Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), People’s Justice Party (PKR); and Puteri UMNO. The archival documents analysed in this study were gathered from these ten organisations. However, due to certain organisational policies and security concerns, personal observations were only conducted at eight organisations, IKIM, YADIM, ABIM, JIM, CIJ, SUARAM, PAS and PKR. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results of the data analysis were triangulated to ascertain the extent to which the information obtained was consistent or inconsistent across sources. The findings of the study showed that there were diverse views among respondents on what constitutes an Islamic press freedom in a multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia. Due to the different levels of Islamic understanding and divergent interpretations of Islam among Muslims, especially among members of political parties, this study also found that the Islamic theory of press freedom is a highly contested concept. More often than not, the respondents of these organisations claimed that Islamic conceptualisations of press freedom should be based on their personal versions of Islam.

Comic books are one of the many popular cultural forms that attract, as part of their audience, a committed readership that engages in a participatory relationship as part of a shared interest in the text. In common with other media forms, this engagement expresses itself in a variety of ways, including interaction with other readers online and face-to-face at conventions, correspondence with producers, and the creation of textual products. Other features of the discourses and practices of this community may be more specific to the comic book readership. One of the most interesting of these is a participatory belief, widely expressed by readers, that they can influence the story content of the published comic book and that comic books are unique among other media forms in this. In this thesis, I investigate several aspects of this belief, in order to offer a more nuanced understanding of the participatory involvement that readers have in comic books, particularly the superhero comic books that dominate American comic book culture. First, I examine whether this participatory belief is supported by evidence from published comic books by undertaking a content analysis of the letter columns and story pages of comic books. Next, I explore the discourses of online comic book culture that relate to authorship and the boundaries of participation and show how the rules of textual engagement that are held by readers shape the interactions between readers and producers. Finally, I look for alternative participatory spaces that are available to comic book readers, finding these in a contested form of engagement with comic books, that of exploring the fictional universes of the text. This approach imagines the text as the representation of a non-actual world, to which the comic book is an incomplete window. Theorising this mode of engagement leads to a conceptualisation of participation that makes visible a participatory space that has been previously overlooked by academic fan studies, and that complicates the existing models of participatory culture.

No description available.

Abstract: This dissertation investigates the syntax and also some aspects of the morphology of Tharifith Berber (such as, the inflectional classes of nouns and the Construct State) within the Distributed Morphology framework (Halle & Marantz 1993, et al.). One of its main objectives is to demonstrate how morphology could be brought within the range of syntax. This view becomes apparent when inflectional morphemes which project in the syntax are also used to derive words. Contrary to what has always been reported, that Berber is an unquestionable VSO language, I show that Tharifith has now shifted to a Topic-Initial configurational system. This claim is based on two pieces of evidence: (1) the SVO order is preferred over VSO, (2) when the object is a clitic both the verb and the clitic are required to be in the initial position of the clause. I propose an account arguing that the two alternations instantiate a Topic-fronting phenomenon, which requires the initial position of the clause to be filled with Topic. Of interest to word order is another property displayed by some WH- complex clauses which require Verb-First. A careful analysis of the structure of these clauses reveals that this is an instantiation of V-to-C movement, also known as the verb second phenomenon (V2). While the movement to the initial position in the main clause is argued to be motivated by Topic, I show that V2 is motivated by the feature Focus which needs to be checked in C. Due to the fact that this operation is sensitive to the phonological property of the complementiser, I make the claim that discourse features, at least in Berber, should be generated at PF. Despite the fact that the subject, object and dative clitics are often grouped under the ‘clitic – banner,’ I show that the first set displays the properties of agreement markers on the verb while the other two sets are claimed to be argument XPs. The approach takes an in-depth theoretical approach to the study of clitics. In a framework where syntax operates on purely formal features, and taking on board the view that clitics as arguments have the formal features required by the computation identical to the ones found with lexical NPs, it is argued that any other distinction between the two sets of arguments is made post-syntactically. Argument structure is then claimed to follow from a fairly small number of principles which govern their syntactic system. The study discusses the movement of clitics at length, and argues it to be phonological. Crucial to the analysis is the fact that this movement operation is not only dependent on the phonological property of clitics but is also dependent on the property of functional elements that host them. Evidence is provided which shows that only functional categories that are phonologically dependent can be hosts. I then conclude that cliticisation is in fact an attraction by the host, a process which occurs during the mapping of the syntactic output to phonology. I further argue that this type of PF merger which is claimed to generate the placement of clitics is constrained by an adjacency relation. Additional support to the claim that morphology should be subject to syntactic principles is found with valency. I show that the system, in many respects, treats the structure of verbs and clauses along the same line. Furthermore, the meaning which is traditionally claimed to be inherent to words is shown from the verbal system to follow from the syntactic structure the verbs project.