Women and Islam in Malaysia: Narrative and myth in the qualitative analysis of two controversial online news stories between 2014 and 2018

Abstract

This study investigates the mythic aspects of news to highlight the role of myth in news narratives of selected Malaysian online news portals through examining the structure and content of individual reports and comparing news and myth. The aim in studying news narratives as myth is to capture and unpack the beliefs, values and established assumptions found in online news portals about the gender norms and roles of Malay Muslim women in the context of the Islamisation phenomenon in Malaysia. This study examines the ten most popular online Malaysian news portals, involving two controversial case studies on women and Islam: (i) a Malaysian gymnast’s sports attire controversy and (ii) a fatwa against Sisters in Islam. The range of these case studies provides an opportunity to determine the type of myth used by the ten most popular English- and Malay-language Malaysian online news portals. Given the climate of Islamisation, this thesis argues that the issue of women and Islam is contested by the media. The use of myth in news reporting varies based on different cultural sources—Christian, Islamic and Malay—influenced by the ownership, readership, religious and racial inclinations of the news portals. The findings reveal that the online English language news portals question the religious norms and consensuses that control female roles, gender and identity, while the online Malay language news portals tend to perpetuate an ‘ideal’ type of contemporary Malay Muslim woman. This thesis concludes that news narratives present a battle between the liberal and conservative interpretations of Islam in Malaysia.