Data Collection and Management

The data collection took approximately six months after the proposal and research framework of the study was approved by the university. The researcher made contacts with the necessary media organizations and media practitioners to obtain leads to the materials needed. The study also referred to sources from the Internet and Malaysian media directories to ascertain the locations that needed to be visited in order to collect the materials.

University

of Malaya

As detailed in section 3.4.2, the study conducted a corpus of materials related to the discourse hijab and its relationship with Malay-Muslim women by collecting data from selected magazines, online blog and online newspaper column. These materials were written and published from July 2012 to July 2015. This timeline allows the study to analyze themes on materials from both platforms related to the hijab phenomenon;

starting from the establishment of Hijabista magazine in July 2012. The launch of this magazine is deemed as the ground-breaking identifier of this new culture, being the first of its kind in the Malaysian media sphere. Subsequently, the analysis proceeded two years after the launch of the magazine to examine progress, changes and current developments of the hijab in print media as well as other media platforms. This was also intended to analyze the growing momentum of veiling fashion and negotiation of female modesty among globalized Malay-Muslim women in the media. Aside from these, the interviewings of media practitioners were also performed along this duration.

For the first unit of analysis, the researcher had contacted publishing companies that produced Hijabista, EH! and Wanita to obtain issues pertinent to the aforementioned timeline when the researcher started this study in 2013. However, the study came across an obstacle due to the limited amount of running issues available. Although Group Media Karangkraf publication that produces Hijabista has a physical store that sell back issues of all magazine titles produced – the researcher was only able to retrieve the latest six back issues for interested buyers. Furthermore, even though the researcher had previously collected a year’s worth of Hijabista since its inception, after July 2013; the data collection came to a halt when the recent issues of the Hijabista magazines were sold out.

Meanwhile, Blu Inc Media (EH!) and Utusan Malaysia (Wanita) do not archive any of their past publications and were not able to provide the final proofs of each issue, as these are considered private and confidential material to their organisation.

University

of Malaya

Nevertheless, the researcher came across oral information that the National Library in Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur maintains a catalogue of most magazines published in Malaysia since the 1980s. The magazines are carefully archived and are accessible to the general public and use. However, loaning of the magazines a prohibited as they are categorised as public reading materials. The study collected 103 issues of the abovementioned magazines from the library from the pre-determined time, 36 for Hijabista, 35 for EH! and 32 for Wanita respectively. From these published issues, the study selected the cover story featured for that month from each magazine. Cover stories were selected as they are issues that are considered as newsworthy and are framed for the reader’s interest. Moreover, they often highlight what is trending and should be made known to the general public during the time of publication. The stories were then photocopied at the library premises and were converted into scanned softcopies of PDF to be imported into the ATLAS.ti software for analysis. The PDF documents were kept in a folder on cloud storage while the hardcopies were filed physically according to their dates and issues for archiving and backup purposes.

Meanwhile, the study also collected the writings of Dina Zaman through her works and stories shared on Facebook by social media users. After following the shared link of Zaman’s work on social media, the researcher found the Malay Mail Online news portal.

In this light, Dina Zaman’s articles which were featured in Malay Mail Online and Utusan can be accessed from any point or location by writing the keywords “hijab” in the search bar. Most of these articles are achieved under the category of “Opinion”. While the timeframe of her writing is slightly newer compared to the magazine samples (from year 2013 to 2015), the relevance of these written articles is significant to the changing times.

A total of 23 articles from Zaman was downloaded as PDFs from The Malay Mail Online website and labelled according to dates published and their title. The articles were then stored in a folder on cloud storage for easy retrieval.

University

of Malaya

Meanwhile, for the second part of the third research design that involved interviews, a set of 16 questions were established (see interview transcripts at Appendix D & E).

Although the questions were derived mainly from the results of the pilot study and literature review, the interview flow was not rigid, as it follows the flow of the conversation where the interview was conducted at the pace set by the participant. Based on recommendations by Thomson et al. (1989), the predetermined questions were formulated to elicit the reflections of the participants so that they can articulate their understanding of the topic at hand, which is the hijab phenomenon. Prior to the interviews, both participants had submitted an interview consent form (Appendix F) and had been briefed on the study objectives in gaining their perspectives on the media industry and the role of the hijab in mediating attitudes and behaviours of consumers. The interviews were conducted in a private space by the researcher, and due to the busy schedules of both participants, the interviews had to be arranged separately. The first participant, Participant 1, was contacted via her Twitter account after she shared A Worried Muslimah’s post on her Facebook page. Participant 1 then responded by providing her email address.

Therefore, after exchange of information, an appointment was set at her home in Kota Damansara, Malaysia. The interview was conducted on 27 March 2013, and lasted approximately one hour. Similarly, Participant 2, the former editor of NUR magazine was also approached to participate in the study via email. After confirming the venue and time through telephone, the interview was set at the Karangkraf headquarters on 27 May 2013 in Shah Alam, Malaysia.

Each interview started with basic or “grand tour” questions of participants’

backgrounds, personal interest, careers as well as education backagrounds. These questions were recommended by McCracken (1988) to create a more comfortable environment to enable fruitful responses. Both participants were generally resourceful on their opinions on the hijab phenomenon and provided a holistic view of their experiences

University

of Malaya

as media producers. Both interviews were recorded using a Samsung Note 3 smartphone and later, the recordings which were in .mp4 formats were transcribed by an appointed transcriber in Microsoft Word. The Word document was later also exported as PDF to enable seamless ATLAS.ti coding during the stage of analysis. The recordings and the word documents were both filed on cloud storage to enable convenient retrieval of the said recordings. In concern of the mostly Malay-language medium of the collected materials, the materials were coded first, and then the selected nodes were translated to English concurrently during the data analysis, by the bilingual primary researcher, who is an experienced translator.