Adib Inquest: A Mixed Method Analysis on Malaysiakini Facebook

The mass media has always played a significant role in shaping public opinion, where people relied on news to gain information that will help them form a specific set of thinking that will then influence their actions. One of the most prominent mass media effect is news framing, where some aspects of perceived reality are selected and presented in more salient ways to promote a particular issue or subject matter to its audiences. In this sense, the inquest on the death of a firefighter named Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim (also known as Adib Inquest) is one of the most prominent and racially-sensitive issue that happened recently in Malaysia, therefore this research will analyse how Malaysiakini reported this issue and how Facebook users reacted to these reports based on their racial identity, through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. This research finds that there is a significant difference among Malays and non-Malays in their 1,746 comments and 7,371 reactions towards the news items, which is based on their perception of nine narrative themes inherent in Malaysiakini’s reports on what actually contributed or caused Adib’s death from the testimonies by multiple witnesses.