One thing that never ceases to amase me about the power of the internet is its competence to propel changes in the political landscape of a country. The underlying influence of the Internet sends a warning to leaders and politicians alike not to underestimate its supremacy.
For one, the aftermath of the 12th general election in Malaysia made me realised that Internet is an effective campaigning tool to reach out to the citizens, impose new ideology and garner supports of the public.
The 12th Malaysia general election
The result of the 12th Malaysia general election is a good battleground that proves that the internet is here to stay. The failure of Barisan National to garner two-thirds of the Parliamentary seat for the first time since 1969 is part of a social change. Above all, it is an annotation on how society is looking at the new media today as their new source of information, the truth bearers.
During the Malaysia general election, the oppositions were using our modern day tools such as blogs, YouTube, websites and the like at their disposal to good effect. Whilst the mainstream media, especially the newspapers, were losing their credibility due to the insufficient reports on the Oppositions, many then relied on the Internet to gain in-depth information. Consequently, this brings a new approach to political campaigning.
At that point of time, Malaysians were embracing the power of Internet and social media. Malaysians were no longer constrained or restricted to traditional media. We were paving our ways for new boundaries and alternatives to gain information.
For example, Jeff Ooi, the popular blogger who was assigned to handle the e-campaign for Democratic Action Party (DAP) during the general election. In taking precedence of his role, Jeff Ooi created a website dedicated to provide election and collaterals, YouTube-linked video clips and links to party's bloggers.
This indicates that the Internet is becoming a platform for the society to seek transparency and accountability. As Nielsen (2006) said that credibility is important to web users and can be increased through the usage of good writings, update pages and by lines.
This reminds me of the recent landscape victory of Barack Obama as the 44th President of United States which was very much influenced by the aggressive intervention of new media as well.
Implications on future political campaign
If you were to ask me, I would say that e-campaign is the route to strive for future elections as we are living in a society cultured by technology and multimedia. Just a brief study on the recent Malaysia election, one would realised that he most distinct difference between they way Barisan National propagated their ideology as opposed to the Oppositions is in the type of genres. Barisan National monopolies the mainstream media (traditional media), while the opposition parties rely on genres such as blogs, websites, YouTube and the like.
At the end, Opposition parties who relied strongly on the new media managed to reach out to the younger generation of Malaysia, especially Malaysia's Generation Y voters. As a result, this segment is more politically conscious (Keong 2008) and they definitely managed to create a big impact on the outcome of the general election.
In conclusion, politicians should never ever overlook the power of Internet as a political campaign tool to reach out to the mass in the future.
References
Schirato, T & Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: An introduction, Allen & Unwin, NSW.
Keong, LM 2008, Internet steers new way in Malaysia election, viewed on 6 November 2008, <http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62038595,00.htm>.
The Star 2008. Malaysia decides 2008, The Star online, viewed on 6 November 2008,
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