Religiously Deviant or a Cult? A Corpus-based Collocational Analysis of the Representation of GISBH in Malaysian English and Malay News Reports

Christina Sook Beng Ong, Hajar Abdul Rahim

Abstract


Global Ikhwan Services and Business Holdings (GISBH), a Malaysian conglomerate known for operating a wide range of businesses in accordance with Islamic principles, came under intense media scrutiny in September 2024 following a police operation that uncovered allegations of child abuse in care homes under its management. The incident reignited public discourse surrounding GISBH’s historical links to the banned Al-Arqam sect, which has been widely described by Malaysian Muslim scholars and organisations as religiously deviant or cult-like. Given this and the central role of Islam in Malay cultural identity in Malaysia, the current study examined how GISBH is represented in Malay-language media in comparison to its portrayal in English-language outlets in Malaysia. Drawing on West and Langone’s (1986) conceptualisation of cults and Langone’s (2015) framework of cult characteristics and using corpus linguistics techniques, namely collocational analysis, this study analyses the representation of GISBH in a corpus of Malay and English news reports published between September and November 2024. The analysis involved identifying collocates of the term “GISBH” in each language, categorising concordance lines according to Langone’s cult characteristics, and thematically evaluating them based on West and Langone’s core elements of cultic groups. The findings show that religious themes were minimal. While the data suggest GISBH is portrayed as non-conformist and cult-like, neither sub-corpus explicitly used the term, and overall representations were similar across both languages.

 

Keywords: GISBH; representation; cult; Malaysian media; corpus-based semantic analysis


Full Text:

PDF

References


Abdul Hamid, A. F. (2015). Spirituality as an integral part of Islamic business: The case of Global Ikhwan. Pacific Affairs, 88(2), 173-192.

AFP. (2024, October 2023). Inside Malaysia's 'houses of horror': Dark secret of child abuse, cult allegations, and a $75 mn scandal. The Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/inside-malaysias-houses-of-horror-dark-

secret-of-child-abuse-cult-allegations-and-a-75-mn-scandal/articleshow/114510323.cms?from=mdr

Anthony, L. (2022, June 4). AntConc 4 (ver. 4.0) - Collocate tool basics [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0N-89xI23Y

Anthony, L. (2024). AntConc (Version 4.3.1) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/AntConc

Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., & McEnery, T. (2013). Sketching Muslims: A corpus-driven analysis of representations around the word ‘Muslim’ in the British press 1998–2009. Applied Linguistics, 34(3), 255–278. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams048

Ballance, O. J. (2022). Methodological considerations for the use of mutual information: Examining the role of context in collocation research. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, 1, 100024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmal.2022.100024

Barker, E. (2015). The not-so-new religious movements: Changes in ‘the Cult Scene’ over the past forty years. Temenos - Nordic Journal for the Study of Religion, 50(2), 235–256. https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.48461

Bedi, R. S. (2024, October 18). ‘Mental torture’: Malaysia’s ex-GISB members share their experiences of years in controversial conglomerate. Channel News Asia. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/mental-torture-malaysias-ex-gisb-members-share-their-experiences-

years-controversial-conglomerate-4687656

Crockford, S. (2018). How do you know when you’re in a cult?. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 22(2), 93-114.

Cusack, C. (2023). Reclaiming ‘Cult’: The transformative effect of ex-member memoirs on the study of new religions. Australian Association for the Study of Religion, University of Notre-Dame, Australia, 30 November – 2 December 2023.

de Waal, E., Schonbach, K., & Lauf, E. (2005). Online newspapers: A substitute or complement for print newspapers and other information channels? Communication: The European Journal of Communication Research, 30, 55-72.

Ding, J.-A., Koh, L. C., & Surin, J. A. (2013). Mapping digital media: Malaysia. Open Society Foundations.

Fong, Y. L., & Ishak, M. S. A. (2014). Framing interethnic conflict in Malaysia: A comparative analysis of newspapers coverage on the keris polemics. Ethnicities, 14(2), 252-278. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796813482310

Fortunati, L., Taipale, S., & Farinosi, M. (2015). Print and online newspapers as material artefacts. Journalism, 16(6), 830–846. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams04810.1177/1464884914545439

Gablasova, D., Brezina, V., & McEnery, T. (2017). Collocations in corpus-based language learning research: Identifying, comparing, and interpreting the evidence. Language Learning. 67(S1), 155–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12225

Ghauri, M. J., & Umber, S. (2019). Exploring the nature of representation of Islam and Muslims in the Australian press. SAGE Open, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019893696

Habibah, I., Hazleena, B., Hazlina, A., & Siti Norzaimalina, A. M. (2020). Power and voices of authority in the media narrative of Malaysian natives: Combining corpus linguistics and discourse analysis approaches. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language

Studies, 26(2), 50–66. http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2020-2602-04

Hadding, C., Semb, O., Lehti, A., Fahlström, M., Sandlund, M., & DeMarinis, V. (2023). Being In-between: Exploring former cult members' experiences of an acculturation process using the cultural formulation interview (DSM-5). Frontiers in psychiatry, 14, 1142189. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1142189

Haryanti, P., & Rakhmawati, A. (2024). Alleged deviations from religious teachings at the Al Zaytun Islamic Boarding School in online news portals: Critical discourse analysis of Teun A. van Dijk’s model. KEMBARA: Jurnal Keilmuan Bahasa, Sastra, dan Pengajarannya,

(1), 245-260. https://doi.org/10.22219/kembara.v10i1.27977

Ismail, M. A. (2024, October 2). Kahwin celaru, JAIS kesan salasilah 435 kanak-kanak GISBH. Utusan Malaysia. https://www.utusan.com.my/nasional/2024/10/kahwin-celaru-jais-kesan-salasilah-435-kanak-kanak-gisbh/

Langone, M. D. (1999). Cults, psychological manipulation and society: international perspectives - An overview. https://www.iskconcommunications.org/iskcon-journal/vol-7/cults,-psychological-manipulation-and-society

Langone, M. D. (2015). Characteristics associated with cultic groups. ICSA Today, 6(3), 10. https://articles1.icsahome.com/articles/characteristics

Li, K., & Zhang, Q. (2021). A corpus-based study of representation of Islam and Muslims in American media: Critical discourse analysis approach. The International Communication Gazette, 0(0), 1–24.

https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams04810.1177/1748048520987440

Malaysian Islamic Council. (2024, November 15). Malaysia’s Islamic council declares GISB teachings deviant. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysias-islamic-council-declares-gisb-teachings-deviant

Murali, R., & Nordin, R. (2024, November 19). Noose tightens around GISB. The Star. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/11/19/noose-tightens-around-gisb

Nizam, F. (2024). Reject GISB's deviant teachings and practices, says Jais. New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2024/10/1114806/reject-gisbs-deviant-teachings-and-practices-says-jais

Poorebrahim, F., & Zarei, G. R. (2013). How is Islam portrayed in Western media? A critical discourse analysis perspective. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Research, 1(2), 57-75.

Rayson, P., & Garside, R. (2000). Comparing corpora using frequency profiling. In A. Kilgarriff & T. B. Sardinha (Eds.). Proceedings of the workshop on comparing corpora (pp. 1-6). Oregon, USA: Association for Computational Linguistics.

Rebane, T., Yee, I., & Surin, H. (2025, February 1). In public, they ran a successful global business. In private, police allege they abused hundreds of children. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/01/asia/malaysia-gisbh-police-investigation-hnk-intl-dst/index.html

Samaie, M., & Malmir, B. (2017). U.S. news media portrayal of Islam and Muslims: A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis. Educational Philosophy and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1281789

SCImago Media Rankings. (2024). Media Web Reputation Ranking. https://www.scimagomedia.com/rankings.php?country=Malaysia

Siti Zubaidah, M. H., & Hajar, A. R. (2016). Defying the global: The cultural connotations of "Islam" in Malaysia. KEMANUSIAAN the Asian Journal of Humanities, 23(Supp. 2), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.21315/kajh2016.23.s2.5

Sufi, M. K., & Yasmin, M. (2022). Racialization of public discourse: Portrayal of Islam and Muslims. Heliyon, 8, e12211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12211

Tornberg, A. & Tornberg, P. (2016). Muslims in social media discourse: Combining topic modeling and critical discourse analysis. Discourse, Context & Media, 13(Part B), 132-142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2016.04.003

West, L. J., & Langone, M. D. (1986). Cultism: A conference for scholars-policy makers. Cultic Studies Journal, 3(1), 85-96. https://articles1.icsahome.com/articles/cultism--a-conference-for-scholars-policy-makers-csj-3




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2025-3103-24

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 

 

 

eISSN : 2550-2247

ISSN : 0128-5157