I have been anticipating political communication in the cyber sphere since 2004. Throughout the years, I have witnessed the evolution of how the internet is utilized as a medium of communication on political issues by the Malaysian netizens. The usage of new media has not only changed the peoples’ lifestyle but also transformed their perspective on Malaysian politics and their position in the domain.
Prior to the active use of the new media, the general public had relied on books, papers and magazines to obtain information on politics and policies. The 21st century was then welcomed with the key to unlimited knowledge– the internet. The nature of the internet in terms of accessibility was an encouragement for people to use it in fulfilling their human needs; information and entertainment. Firstly, the internet is fairly cheap to use. Secondly, information can be retrieved ad hoc. It is also convenient where with only one click of the mouse, the information appears on the computer screen, ready for the user’s perusal.
With the rapid advancement of technology, computers have become cheaper and smaller in size which makes it more convertible. Internet service providers have also been designing cheaper broadband plans. It has enabled those with limited budgets to subscribe them so that they can have access to the cyberworld anywhere they go.
This has driven the increase of internet users to a colossal number. Hence, leading to the rise of exposure of information to the general public. The people may access the internet for various reasons. It may or may not be for political related activities. Nevertheless, to access the internet itself gives them a higher probability to be exposed to political information. (Note: The situation has made people more informed on politics, BUT this does not guarantee that they are better informed or have become better educated in politics on a macroscopic perspective)
The way people utilize the internet for political activities have gone through phases of evolution. During the late 90s, netizens had engaged in political discussions in chatrooms on the then popular messenger service known as the mIRC (Internet Relay Chat for Windows). Even though free website services had already existed at that time, personal sites had only began to mushroom during the blogging era. This was because blog services were more user friendly than their site-setup predecessors by websites like Tripod and Angelfire.
Blogger and WordPress were among the most popular blog services that hosted sites by Malaysian bloggers. In 2008, the unexpected results of the 12th Malaysian election had changed the country’s political landscape. For the first time in history, the ruling party won a slim 2/3 majority of the electoral seats. According to research, blogs have played a salient role in influencing voters to change their choices in voting. The event signified the nascence of the new media as a platform for political communication in Malaysia.
Service providers on the internet create their innovative products based on the principles of basic human nature. One of the nature of man is that he is a social creature. Human beings are unable to grow normally if they live in seclusion. They have an urge to communicate and live in a group or network. One of the online services that fulfills this purpose is social network sites. The biggest social networks on the internet are Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Today, Facebook is the biggest empire in the business with billions of users worldwide. Amongst those three networks, Facebook is the most effective cybernetworking tool in political communication. Its functions encompasses all facets of activities relevant in catalyzing political communication on the internet. Thus, it became the social network that gave the biggest impact on Malaysian politics and international relations.
The gist of news reporting is that it has to be “new” and “served hot” to its consumers. Microblogging has immensely changed the flow of news reporting and the speed of information-sharing in our daily lives. Twitter allocates spaces for users to post sentences with a maximum of 140 words per post. People have turned to microblogging from their mobile phones to spread information and also to keep updated on the latest news on politics.
The Iran election in 2010 was the first political event that was followed by its local citizens and the international community. News on the election were reported realtime by news agencies and even participants in the election themselves. Pictures and videos were uploaded through their cellphones depicting the happenings during the events.
All these internet and telecommunication services are tools of catalyzing change in the malaysian and international political arena. There will be more upcoming cyber technologies that have the potential to affect the political scenario of our world today. The main question is that will it make the world a better place for us to live in? Or will it only be the same old story again, where certain group of people or individuals who will take advantage on using those technologies to control man for the achievement of their personal interests. While the rest of the people, keep on fighting with each other.
