Portrayals of the Arab spring in the electronic media news and the image of Arabs among Malaysian academicians / Somia Abdul-Same’e Anam

This study is a media effects research and it is an attempt to examine the type of Arab image, level of Arab Spring awareness among Malaysian academicians, attitude toward Arabs, perception on new status of the Arabs and the news sources that Malaysian academicians depended on to gain news and information about the Arab World. Specifically, the research objectives are to validate and proposes measurement models, validate and propose a full structural model of news exposure influence in the construction of the image of Arab and estimates the influence of attitude and awareness of Arab Spring as mediator factors, as well as to examine the moderation effect of the variables. This study employs correlational survey as the methodology of study. A total of 300 Malaysian academicians from five public universities located in Klang valley were selected as the sample. For data analysis, the study employs Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) method using AMOS statistical software to analyze the direct and indirect influence of moderator and mediator variables in the relationship between variables and employs SPSS software to analyze the descriptive part of the data. The findings suggested that the internet was a main news source used by Malaysian academicians and Arabs have a moderate image among Malaysians. The findings from SEM part suggested that all the measurements models are accepted after modification and the model-fit is acceptable and achieved all the measures of construct validity .This study also suggested that all of the dimensions of the variables are significantly correlated and also significantly explained by its observed variables and there is no significant difference between the proposed model and observed model. Thus, all Null Hypotheses were also accepted. Findings of hypothesis testing showed also that the hypothesized full structural model of Arab Image fits the data. The model fit of the final hypothesized model suggested that time exposure does not contribute to the model. The findings of indirect analysis suggested that both awareness and attitude play as mediating effects to achieve “assumption of statistical power proposed”. Strong support was found for the hypothesis of the relationship between attitude and image, and also between attitude and perception. Eventually, the findings of this study added to the body of knowledge concerning the Arab world and Malaysia and to the scholars and researchers in the field of communication and media, especially, electronic media and image. Further, the findings from this study contribute to the knowledge regarding the news assumption of mediation analysis in media effect studies.