Jurnal al-Turath; Vol. 5, No. 2; 2020 e-ISSN 0128-0899 76 Received:19 September 2020; Accepted: 14 December 2020 Trend Of Media Reporting On The Issues Of Liberal Islam And Religious Pluralism Latifah Abdul Majid Email: umilm@ukm.edu.my Centre for al-Quran & al-Sunnah, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), 43600 Bangi, Selangor Abstract This paper aims to analyze the latest trend of the official print media on the Liberal and Religious Pluralism schools of thought. The present study follows a contextual and analytical methodology to identify the practices of freedom of expression by the mass media in the issue of Liberal Islam and Religious Pluralism. This paper demonstrated that the mass media needs to be prudent in exercising freedom of expression, especially in reporting matters of communalism/racism and religion. Even so, this liberty may disrupt the harmony of a plural society if there is no control or guideline, particularly in issues relating to Islam. In addition, it may also cause the Muslim society to be confused or misunderstand and deny the views of the authorities on these thoughts. This paper discovers that Liberal Islam and Religious Pluralism are schools of thought which require openness of ijtihad (independent reasoning) beyond the limits or restrictions in Islamic Shariah. It is increasingly spreading unnoticed by the society. One of the mediums which play a big role in spreading these thoughts is the mass media, particularly the mainstream print media and internet surfing. Keywords: Convergence, freedom of expression, liberal Islam, mass media, religious pluralism, trend. 1. Introduction Media is the primary source of information in the context of mass communication. Agents of communication such as newspapers, radio, television and new media such as mobile phones and internet play an important role for the society and development of human civilization. Media control may be considered as a key power in governing a state. If previously media was the means of communication, they have now become a very essential power such that it controls the media (information) is the master who rules (Melki, 2017). Theoretically, accurate and reliable information spread through mass media is the pulse of democratic process. As a government system which gives priority to freedom and transparency of media, media plays an essential role in this society. At the same time, the role of mass media here is determined by the process of social responsibility for society through the dissemination of the most accurate and precise information (Budirahayu, Wijayanti, & Baskoro, 2018). Mass media are the means or technology for dissemination to the general public such as newspapers, books, magazines, radio, television and internet, which can reach a massive audience such as the population of a country. The term mass media was first introduced in the 1920s with extensive radio network technology and large-scale distribution of newspaper and magazines (Adnan, 2015). However, some forms of mass media such as books and manuscripts have already been in use since centuries ago. The term public media has the same meaning as it covers news and entertainment genres published in newspapers, television, radio and any other forms of broadcasting (Adnan, 2015). Mass media main targets are localism and globalism but it is open to local values and selected expressions of modernism (Faisal Bakti, 2018). It is asserted also that social media has a great impact on society specially in the development of secular society (Budirahayu et al., 2018; Hughes, 2018). Media ownership is controlled by groups with political agendas. Intolerance of ‘the other’, from Islam and migrants to people of colour, show the rise of fundamentally prejudiced groups who relate well to negative media representations of ‘the other’, further fuelling financial support for dominant public voices, at the expense of those silenced by discrimination. Media studies on Islam show negative portrayals in Western media which neglect the Muslim voice (Bleich, Souffrant, Stabler, der Veen, & Maurits, 2018). Some reasons include news culture, lack of knowledge about Islam and unawareness of the consequences from such narratives (Rahman & Emadi, 2018). The research showed that the rigidity of religion is being softened gradually, and more and more people are becoming of the view that humanity is