Social Media and Cultural Believes

The Controversial Pages of how The Star published 
some Pork restaurants during the Ramadhan.
Source: Google.com

Based on Malaysia Today (2011), Datuk Seri Hishammudin Tun Hussein, the Home Minister has reprimanded the country most widely read newspaper, The Star over their article titled 'Dining out' supplement which was deemed to be insensitive to the Muslims, especially in Malaysia. It is being said that The Star made a careless mistake regarding the importance of Muslim's fasting month. The Star published some reviews and suggestions for the Muslim to buka puasa in their supplements, where some of non - halal restaurants were named. The Home Ministry considered The Star of being disrespectful to all the Muslims and decided to met The Star Executive Director to demand some explanations. Wong Chun Wai, The Star Executive Director justified that 'Dining Out' segment was not meant to be in the cover page of 'Ramadhan Delight'. Hence, The Star made their public apology in the following day and promised of not repeating the same mistake in the future. 

Fasting to Muslims
Image Source: MyNewsHub.

According to MynewsHub (2011), fasting is one of the greatest means of helping a person to fulfill the commands of Islam and Malaysia is very different from other countries, because it is multi-racial, multi-religion and multi-cultural. Every Muslims believe that fasting is the time for self control, more closer to God and developing the attitude of asceticism towards the world and its desires. Walsh (2006) once stated that the readers have their own understanding based on their own believes and cultures. KVL (2006) also stated that both images and text express the meaning, according to each culture in society. Hence, it is very crucial for the editor and publication company to be aware of the content. This issue has taught us that The Star and all publication company in the world should understand and act responsible before they publish the article, because once its go public, then you cannot avoid the huge reactions that unbearable to handle.

To conclude, regardless of how crucial the role of media is, this issue has explains that we should appreciate people by respecting their culture, as we are living in multi-racial country. 

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Reference:


Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images Chapter 1: The Semiotic Landscape: Language and Visual Communication. 

Malaysia Today, 2011, The Star Rapped by Home Ministry for Buka Puasa Supplement, viewed June 7 2012, <http://malaysiatoday.com/2011/08/the-star-rapped-by-home-ministry-for-buka-puasa-supplement/>.

MyNewsHub, 2011, Malaysian Muslims to Begin Fasting Monday, viewed June 7 2012, <http://mynewshub.my/2011/07/31/malaysian-muslims-will-observe-the-fasting-month-beginning-tomorrow/>.

Walsh, M 2006, The Textual Shift: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal text, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no.1, pp. 24 - 37.