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ethical behaviour within the community should be underlined together. This is the key to fostering unity
and harmony, which will guarantee strength and national harmony.
These are some of the questions that must be considered and explored for future research. We
are agreed with the statement from Vicari (2013), on social media and contention, “how much social
media can help with making countries more democratic is a big topic in sociology when discussing global
activism with multiple centers. It is also difficult to measure exactly how using social media affects the
results of extra institutional activities, but studying how social media is becoming a part of this
environments can give us valuable insights.” This study is one simple innovative approach to understand
this phenomenon. There are many other methods and approaches that can be explored to gain a better
understanding of this matter. Exploring different methodologies and approaches can provide a more
comprehensive and nuanced understanding of complex issues like the concept of 'budi' and social
contention. It is important to look up and appreciate a wide range of approaches and perspectives to gain
a deeper and more well-rounded understanding of complex topics. It is undeniably crucial that addressing
matters of 'budi' is of utmost importance. This serves as the foundation for an individual's morality, which
can be nurtured through proper upbringing (Zainuddin, 2021). In this regard, the example of moral and
ethical behaviour within the community should be underlined together. This is the key to fostering unity
and harmony, which will guarantee strength and national harmony.
We also would like to highlight some of the limitations in this study, firstly the concept of ‘budi’
itself. This concept is basically broad and complex. As it broad, our concern is the possibility of false
positives, where one may assume that 'budi' has an impact on a certain matter in social contention when,
in reality, it does not. Secondly, the choice of the scenario also a matter of concern. The scenario selected
relates to political, religious, and moral issues. This might be disruptive in terms of the partisan
sentiments that form the fundamental narrative for each individual in these interactions. We speculate
that if there were other issues aside from the dominance of the political narrative, interactions and
themes might differ. We can see that the concept of "budi" has somewhat permeated into the society of
different ethnic groups. Even in the contentious situation, there is no incitement to violence, however
the study cannot make any comprehensive conclusions. This is because the scenarios observed are very
specific and cannot be generalized to broader situations. Another limitation in this study is that there was
no clear utilization of theory to understand this situation. For future studies, I recommend that the future
researchers may consider examining this phenomenon while also relying on theories such as the
Intergroup Contact Theory by Allport (1954) and the Social Identity Theory by Henri Tajfel (1971). Overall,
through this innovative approach, we have gained a new dimension in understanding the concept of
'budi' and social tensions. We have also been able to observe the extent to which the different ethnic
groups in Malaysia manage the contention and maintain harmony.
References
Adam, D. M., Tarrow, S., Tilly, C., McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of Contention.
Cambridge University Press.
Aminnuddin, N. A. (2020). Ethnic differences and predictors of racial and religious discriminations among
Malaysian Malays and Chinese. Cogent Psychology, 7(1).
https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2020.1766737
Awang Sariyan. (2007). Santun Berbahasa. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.
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