I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who encouraged and supported me in my efforts to complete this study. The final year project is undertaken in partial fulfillment of the requirement to complete the Bachelor of International Business (HONS) course at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Several previous studies have focused on feelings expressed on Instagram during regular working hours, and Malaysians' responses to MCO 3.0 have only been studied through physical surveys and questionnaires.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia implemented MCO 3.0 to control the transmission of Covid-19 variant virus infections to the public and prevent a rapid spike in cases, due to the rising trend of daily cases of the Covid-19 variant virus. During MCO 3.0, there were traditional media portrayals of suicides and the White Flag movement. According to the findings of this survey, most Malaysians post portraits on Instagram during MCO 3.0, and most of them express their responsibility in their Instagram captions.
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
- Research Background
- Problem Statement
- Research Question
- Research Objective
- General Objective
- Specific Objective
- Research Significance
- Conclusion
Along with the implementation of MCO 3.0 (May 12 – August 31, 2021), Malaysians were forced to stay at home during the MCO 3.0 period unless they had a valid reason to leave, such as buying basic necessities. People would share their views on MCO 3.0 and COVID-19 through social media and how they are surviving such extraordinary occasions, and Instagram is currently one of the most popular social media platforms used by the younger generation in Malaysia. With a ban on dine-in restaurants and interstate travel during MCO 3.0, more Malaysians may find suicide their only option for solace (Amanda, 2021).
Thus, this study was conducted to investigate whether doom and gloom was reflected through social media and the impact of general sentiment on marketing and media implications. Therefore, it is crucial to look at the content analysis of social media posts under MCO 3.0. However, there are only a few people who have done this study, and there are even fewer people who study content analysis of Instagram under MCO 3.0. Therefore, this is the study to understand the general mood reflected through social media during MCO 3.0 by using content analysis.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Pandemic
- Movement Control Order
- Psychological and Behavior Change
- Crisis Communication
- Content Analysis
- Theoretical Framework
- Conceptual Framework
- Narrative of Fear
- Narrative of Fun
- Narrative of Sadness
- Narrative of Responsibility
- Narrative of Encouragement
- Previous Studies
Nevertheless, children show indicators of distractibility, irritability and clinginess regardless of age, as indicated by (Viner et al., 2020). According to their parents, other psychological problems revealed by the young person during the lockdown included feelings of loneliness, fear, anxiety and bewilderment (Singh et al., 2020). For example, political causes or protests (#election2020), branding or advertising campaigns (#100plus), genre representation (#femboy), disease awareness (#hydrocephalus), tourism (#KualaLumpur), cuisine (#food), memories (#tbt), etc (Omena et al., 2020).
Based on the research of Hiram et al. 2015), Instagram users use the app for archiving, viewing, and escaping loneliness, in addition to social engagement and self-expression. Before placing them into different emotions, the framework used by Nam et al. 2015) classified them based on their polarity. The conceptual basis for image categories in this study is mainly based on Yuheng et al.
Portraits replace the friend's category in Yuheng et al. 2014), while the landscape category of Dorsch et al. While most of the categories are based on Mohamad's (2020) framework, the narratives of annoyance and resistance have been replaced with the narrative of sadness, which is based on Nam et al. 2015) emotion, and the narrative of encouragement, which was introduced to fit the setting of this study. During the MCO 3.0 period, the narrative of grief is a genre for epithets that reflect the aspect of loss and inability to achieve something.
The first was a study focused on Instagram content and users, in which researchers discovered some fresh information on a previously unexplored sector (Yuheng et al., 2014). The results of analyzing 1000 photos revealed that images uploaded to Instagram can be classified into eight categories (Yuheng et al., 2014), which were previously described in the theoretical frameworks in Chapter 2. Furthermore, user groups are not related directly with the number of their followers (Yuheng et al., 2014).
Happy, angry, sad, and peaceful were selected as the representative emotions in this study to improve the accuracy of emotion classification and minimize the misclassification rate (Nam et al., 2015).
METHODOLOGY
- Introduction
- Data Collection Method
- Data Classification
- Activity
- Gadget
- Captioned Photo
- Fashion
- Food
- Portrait
- Landscape
- Pet
- Selfie
- Example of Narrative of Fear
- Example of Narrative of Fun
- Example of Narrative of Sadness
- Example of Narrative of Responsibility
- Example of Narrative of Encouragement
- Intercoder Reliability Test
- Data Analysis Tool
Since Instagram posts are subject to change, all 150 posts were screenshotted to maintain documentation of the data at the time of collection. The type of content that Instagram users posted during the MCO 3.0 period was determined by the content of the post, which is the image of the post. The categories that will be used to classify the content of the postings, which include their images, are shown in Table 3.1.
As shown in Figure 3.4, each image with embedded text falls under the image category. The example shown on the left in Figure 3.5 is an image showing a woman's outfits. The second photo in the middle is an example of a group portrait where a group of people pose for the camera.
The third image on the right is an example of a portrait where a girl poses for the camera. The statement "看午人数还是凯升" which means "the number" of confirmed cases continues to increase" is a headline derived from an Instagram post and shows that the author is concerned about the outbreak. In addition, a another key word from the next title is "the outside world is a dangerous place now".
Happy” and a smiley face emoji, making the description fall into the entertainment narrative category. The sad face emoji, as well as the hashtags "#tb" and "#lockdown", are evidence of the author's sadness at not being able to do the activities he enjoyed during MCO 3.0. One of the posts includes a caption that reads "PKP sumbung lagi, don't forget to stay fit!" The writer urges the community and the public to deal constructively with COVID-19 and MCO 3.0, despite the fact that the situation is not ideal.
All information collected is then entered into SPSS to analyze the frequency of occurrence of each category.
DATA ANALYSIS
- Introduction
- Intercoder Reliability Test
- Date of Posts
- Content of Picture
- Content Analysis
In Microsoft Excel, the dates of all the posts were sorted and then summed using a pivot table to determine the frequency of posts that occurred on each day. There are 46.7% of fashion images among the 150 posts and 28.7% of the posts are images regarding the activity. 20.0% of the users shared food images on their Instagram and 16.7% of them shared their selfie images.
There are a total of 107 posts that show multiple categories of their images in their posts and out of 107 posts, 85 posts have two image categories, 31 of them have three image categories and 1 of them has four image categories. The fun story comes second with 42.7%, followed by the encouragement story, which comes in third with only 24%. The story of sadness comes next, and the story of fear has the lowest share.
Among all the categories, the narrative of responsibility was the most frequent, with 66 Instagram users portraying themselves as responsible citizens and community members in their captions. The story of fun has a frequency of 64, whereas the story of encouragement has a frequency of 36. The story of sadness follows in second place with a frequency of 16, followed by the story of fear with only 4 frequencies.
The caption in the figure expressed 3 kinds of narratives which are the narrative of fun, the narrative of responsibility and the narrative of encouragement. Some of the key points present as the proof of narration of fun are the key words "happy". There are a total of 33 posts that have shown multiple categories of narratives in their caption and out of the 33 posts, 30 of them have two captions while 3 of them have.
V = Tale of fear W = Tale of fun X = Tale of sadness Y = Tale of responsibility Z = Tale of encouragement.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
- Discussion on Major Findings
- Discussion on the Analysis of Image Categories
- Discussion on the Analysis of Caption Categories
- Implications of the Study
- Limitations of the Study
- Recommendations for Future Research
- Conclusion
The study of Heinonen (2011) indicated that it is feasible to gain a better understanding of why customers are interested in social media by focusing on activities rather than just reasons or gratifications. Despite the fact that the research of Azlan et al. 2020) revealed that Malaysians practice good hygiene and are aware of COVID-19 prevention methods, these characteristics were well represented in the Instagram posts collected. At least the content displayed on social media shows that Malaysians have a certain understanding of hygiene and epidemic prevention measures.
This finding is consistent with research conducted by Azlan et al. 2020), which found that the majority of survey participants have a positive view of the eradication of COVID-19. The finding is consistent with research by Nabity-Grover et al. 2020), which found that during pandemics, individuals are more aware of the material they share on social media, as it can influence others. Last but not least, the least common fear story could imply that Malaysians are facing the COVID-19 with a positive attitude.
Despite the fact that the outbreak of COVID-19 ushered in a period of doom and gloom, in which many plans were forced to be canceled, companies experienced low profits, and workers faced the prospect of being laid off, the Instagram platform continued to feature positive and uplifting content. Malaysia to allow interstate travel from Monday, some COVID-19 restrictions remain for KL, Selangor and Sabah. Estimating Direct and Spillover Impact of Political Elections on COVID-19 Transmission Using Synthetic Control Methods.
Inside out and outside in: How the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting self-disclosure on social media. Malaysia to impose MCO for 2 weeks from Jan 13 in several states to curb Covid-19 cases: Muhyiddin. Impact of COVID-19 and containment on child and adolescent mental health: a narrative review with recommendations.
