State of Kelantan in Malaysia revived its legislative proposal in April 2014 to re-introduce Islamic penal code named “Hudud Law” has touched off a salient round of heated debate about its justifiability in a constitutional nation with multi-ethnic populations scattered. By employing framing as theoretical framework and content analysis as the research method, this study examines what and how different the perspectives of mainstream media, New Straits Times and alternative media, Malaysiakini have created that affect people’s understanding and opinions upon Hudud issue, through the attribution of source actors; frame themes; and the tone of the news in their respective coverage. Results demonstrate that the alternative media pay more attention with a more diverse of news sources towards the issue by articulating Responsibility attribution frame as their dominance theme, as a dedication towards monitorial and facilitative role. Contrastingly, mainstream media employed conflict frame as its dominant theme with lesser dissent voices, devoted its gatekeeping function to serve rather the political elites and opinion leaders. This research finds that, when reporting the Hudud issues, mainstream media fail to facilitate quality dialogue with diversity of voices between people and the social actors but demonstrate the role toward escalating conflicts rather than solving without a more balance and contextual coverage than the alternative one, and argues that this undermines the ideal roles and functions of media should play in a sound of democracy.
