Systematic Desktop Study on the Socio-culture of Youths in Malaysia: Personal Values and Tools for Effective Communication

Being a huge segment of the population, youths are an important segment to be addressed whether in a business and corporate setting, or in the national and policy agenda. Understanding the sociocultural context of youths, including their personal values will give direction in planning communication strategies and initiatives to motivate participation of youths. Identifying youths’ personal values will give insights to youths preferred tools, medium, design and approach for communication. This also includes IKRAM with its ultimate goal for building Negara Rahmah (MNR 2035). Maximum participation from youths is needed to support and execute strategies towards achieving the goal.
Effectiveness of communication is very important to disseminate the right information to targeted audiences. Youth being a huge segment of the population of the country, and also to many organisations, understanding their preferred platforms and approach of communication is pivotal to make sure information is reaching them. There are many consequences of ineffective communication which are misunderstandings, conflicts and lack of engagement and participation. IKRAM, with its ambitious aim, will need all the youths available to actively participate in all of the initiatives and activities.
This study aims to understand the personal values that are being upheld by youths in Malaysia and identify the effective communication medium that is aligned to their personal values. Objectives are as follows: (i) To identify effective tools and mediums in disseminating information to youths in Malaysia via secondary data available; (ii) To study the form of design and approach of information that are preferred by youths in Malaysia via secondary data available; and (iii) To analyse previous studies regarding personal values that are upheld in youths in Malaysia.
The objectives were attained through systematic review of secondary data available in open sources platforms, published between the years 2017-2021. Secondary data were searched using keywords such as youth in Malaysia, communication preference, social media and personal values. Thematic analysis on the secondary data was done to answer each research question. To validate the findings recorded from the secondary data, expert focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted.
Among the main personal values that are upheld by youths in Malaysia from the 10 Basic Human Values Theory (BHV Theory), are hedonism, self-direction and power. Although generally these are the main common values among youths, values may differ according to upbringing, environment and exposure. Youths’ personal values influence their preference of communication. Secondary findings from this study shows that youths in Malaysia use social media as their main communication preference platform i.e., WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. They use social media to get information, for entertainment and for socialising, and prefer handheld smartphones as the main gadget. Therefore, the approach of information that attracts youths is short and simple information which consists of simple texts and pictures/graphics.
To effectively disseminate information to youths, organisations such as IKRAM are encouraged to use social media as the main platform with the approach of simple and short text messages, along with visual aids. This strategy is pivotal to attract youths to explore more about the information via websites or other longer versions of the information on their own. Research findings serve as an important foundation in planning communication strategies and initiatives effective for youths in IKRAM specifically, and Malaysia in general.