UKM News Official Portal

By Abdul Ghani Nasir

BANGI, 22 June, 2010 – The  persistent and relentless accusations, and criticisms  by 114 bloggers against the goverment during the March, 2008 General Elections campaigns made  a big impact on information flow that can influence the people’s minds.

These bloggers were part of 193 political blogs selected at random where all their postings made from December 2007 to April 2008 were analysed.

The study was carried out by a research group from the Political Science Programme, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, UKM headed by  Associate Professor Saliha Hassan entitled: Main Issues Before, Current and After the 12th General Elections: An Analysis of the Contents of Selected Malaysian Political Blogs.

The study found most of the bloggers used pseudonyms, writing in English and Malay and touching on issues not discussed by the main stream media since most are deemed to be controlled by political parties in the government or symphatethic to the goverment.

Hiding behind anonymity the bloggers were embolden to be very critical of not only goverment policies and actions that they don’t like but also the leadership of the then Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

“Our research showed that the Malaysian political blogs are more inclined not to support the goverment. Out of the 193 blogs analysed, 114 were found to be not supportive of the BN Government. Issues affecting the political scene in Malaysia especially those involving the BN goverment  were criticised openly in these blogs.

“Only 28 political blogs are found  to be supportive of  the goverment. This is very small compared to the anti-goverment blogs. Another 51 blogs can be deemed to be neutral.

“The political blogs that are supportive of the goverment is small,”  said the researchers.

The study also found issues pertaining to the elections like speculation over its date prior to the announcementfor the general elections, names of potential candidates of both sides, strategies to be used, attacks on candidates, managing the elections by the Election Commission, the transparency of the Malaysian elections and other hot issues were debated in the political blogs.

The second issue that become the main topic after the elections is on the leadership of Abdullah Badawi with 90 postings identified in the research. Free speech is also another issue discussed by the political bloggers. Other issues touched were global issues, cronyisme and the increasing cost of living.

 A total of 676 posting were coded after the 12th Elections  with 18 issues identified as being mainly discussed.

Most bloggers touched on the failure of Abdullah during the elections. He was seen as failing to continue his winning streak after the last elections resulting in four states falling to the opposition. Some of the blogs also discussed on the need for Abdullah to stepdown.