Talking Public Perception: What we See vs What is Real

By, Nurfeeza Mohd Jasni

GOMBAK, 29 May 2025: An interesting forum titled, “Public Perception in Contemporary Issues” was held in the afternoon of 29 May, from 2.00 pm until 4.00 pm, bringing together respectful speakers to discuss the important role of public perception in shaping contemporary societal challenges. The forum, held in HSC Seminar Room, of Human Sciences Building, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), attracted a diverse audience eager to engage with the insights shared by panellists.

The forum featured two distinguished guests, who were Faidz Sanusi, Head of Communications at the Prime Minister’s Department, and Norlin Othman, former Ambassador of Malaysia to Sweden, and Prof. Dato’ Sri Dr. Syed Arabi Idid, a professor of the Department of Communication at IIUM, as moderator. Each of the speakers shared their own perspective in the discussion, highlighting the complexities of public perception in today’s fast-paced world.

“Yes, we need social media, but we can’t rely 100 percent on them,” Faidz said when he was asked about the role of social media in shaping public opinion. He explained that in today’s world, it is difficult to control social media, especially in terms of credibility. For example, even when the government shared about the ongoing ASEAN event, there were still “noise” and scepticism from the public that often buried the message. This shows how hard it is to control the narratives from social media in terms of credibility and trust.

On Norlin’s side, she talked about how different nowadays generations are from those back then generations in terms of the usage of social media. She explained the way they studied back in the old days, where they had face-to-face consultation with the lecturers, had discussions with the groupmates, and went to the library to search for academic sources regarding the assignments, is totally different from students in the modern era, where everything that we want to find, we just search and click. Norlin highlights that social media is like an invisible world, where you don’t see it but it’s there.

“We do have the capability to control, don’t rely on AI to control ourselves,” she added.

Before the end of the session, Faidz shared how he controls and informs his officers and colleagues to make sure any announcement on policies or any launch comes from the Ministry itself instead of the Minister because there is a difference between them. At the end of his speech, he reminded the audience to make sure they carry the responsibility of checking any news in terms of credibility because they will advise their parents on whether the news is real or fake.

The forum concluded with a lively Q&A session where the audience engaged by asking questions to the panellists regarding the public perception of today’s issues to gain deeper understanding and to know their own perspectives about it. ***