Journalism Ethics, Attitude on New Media Journalism and the New Media Readers

Aims: This study looks at the social media behaviour of the new media journalism readers in Malaysia for Siakap Keli (SK) and Free Malaysia Today (FMT). The objectives are to (1) identify the level of knowledge on journalism ethics, attitude, and the social media behaviour; (2) investigate the relationship between social media behavior and the journalism ethics knowledge of readers; and (3) to investigate the relationship between social media behavior and the attitude of the Malaysian readers towards the local online news media. Methodology: This study employs quantitative research design using the online survey technique. A total of 397 respondents (210 SK and 187 FMT) were collected from the likers/followers of SK and FMT Facebook accounts. Result: The study found that FMT readers have higher level of journalism ethics knowledge, better attitude towards new media journalism and better involvement in their social media behavior than the readers of SK. In addition, the relationship between knowledge on journalism ethics, attitude and social behavior are statistically significant for both websites. However, the result show that there are slight level differences between the two news websites. Contributions: Theoretically, the study contributes to the field of ethics on new media journalism based on the readers’ perspective rather than the usual research done on the journalistic practitioners’ perspective specifically in the Malaysian settings.