Political websites in Malaysia losing bite - really?

The New Straits Times (Malaysia) on Friday had an article, titled “Political Websites Lose Bite”, that we nearly overlooked. The article compares election results from 1999 to the 2004 polls, and is based on the paper by Associate Professor Saliha Hassan, called “The Internet and political websites in the 1999 and 2004 Malaysian general elections” which was presented at the Fourth International Malaysian Studies Conference. The essence of the article is that the influence of political websites is waning in Malaysia. Our conclusion? The author of the paper doesn’t understand that the Internet represents the most dramatic change in the way people communicate and transactions are conducted in the last 100 or so years.

It says that in 1999, the number of Intenet users in Malaysia was about 650,000. During the elections there were 40 pro-Anwar websites (former DPM Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, ousted by former Prime Minister on grounds of moral misconduct and corruption) and 20 pro-government websites. The article said that the opposition’s websites were more interesting. Today, there are more than 8 million Internet users, political websites total hundreds not inclusive political weblogs and news sites. Read on.

The Professor states that those websites nearly duplicate what was said in the media already. The article says that those websites developed by independent non-partisan organisations, analysts and concerned individuals often dealt with more substantive issues relating to the democratic significance of election and the importance of voting for the right candidate. She brings some examples of websites that don’t load or that look very similar to each other. Gerakan appears to be an exception. Its party secretary general Chia Kwang Chye, who also is the Internal Security Deputy Minister who is quoted in the article also argues that the limited reach of the Internet is a problem in its usage during elections and that in “some of the interactive ‘independent’ and ‘not so independent’ websites would be the tendencies of ethic slurring, religious dogmatism and use of abusive language. Most of the culprits were in Internet forums and discussion groups. Saliha concludes with questioning the Malaysian voter’s capability to use cyberspace responsibly and their sense of respect and recognition for differences and opinion. “It would seem that for the government it only proves again that Malaysians are not ready for unharnessed but self-regulated freedom of expression.”

Sorry for the long replication – but do we agree with the statements made? Absolutely not and we have made this clear a couple of times in our history but those who want to read some older stuff, please follow the links below.

New technologies, and this means the web as well as the usage of mobile phones, is revolutionising the way communication is conducted. If the websites of political parties look similar to what has been said in the printed media already, it only shows that politicians or those responsible for web design and web communication just don’t understand the power of the Internet. It is a different media and it needs a different mindset. If the mindset has not been changed, of course, websites are outdated, or just don’t load, as indicated in the article. Does this mean that Malaysians are not able to work unregulated in the Internet? No – absolutely not again. May be it means that they grasp the impact of the Internet more than any of the media representatives or those running political parties. Slander and abusive language? That is normal and a different problem. But other users in any of the groups frequently manage to regulate those who use abusive language. They are reminded of the rules in a forum, and, if there are repeats, might not be able to access the forum anymore. But look at groups and forums in Yahoo – they are full of abusive language. Is this bad? It is not good, but at least, “opponents” talk or exchange ideas, at least in general, something which doesn’t necessarily happen in the real world. In the real world, they wouldn’t talk to each other at all and keep living in their own cocoon. Tom Peters, a management guru from the US said something like that there should be a board comprised of youth in every company as they would get new technology. May be the same is true for politicians. May be there is a need for a lot of young blood in the political parties.

The writing described the use of new technology in India. http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#108451450238894119

Here, we talked about the elections in the Philippines http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#108254838425739148

BusinessWeek had a great article about the influence of the Internet on the elections in general. http://asiabusinessconsulting.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_asiabusinessconsulting_archive.html#108254666944712485