Inteligencia artificial (2001)

Due to restrictions in publishing print media in Malaysia, the development of alternative media, especially the emergence of the Internet, has been attractive to many Malaysians. Prior to the introduction of the Internet, alternative media in Malaysia comprised of newspapers and magazines published by nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), activists and opposition political parties (Ling 2003). Due to the status of the mainstream media in Malaysia, different ways of constructing news could also be seen as an ‘alternative’ to the inherent state-owned press system. As outlined in this chapter, the mainstream media in Malaysia is mainly pro-government, with the aim of supporting ‘national unity’ and publishing positive stories on the nation’s developments and achievements. Thus, the definition of alternative media in Malaysia is very much driven by the fact that any tendency to be ‘different’ from the mainstream can be considered ‘alternative’, a category which might embrace various definitions of how ‘alternative’ is defined in its Western counterpart.

In developing countries, it is harder to define alternative media within the heterogeneity of origins and dynamics of alternative journalism in the regions. Thus, the basis of defining might be “more by what it is not than by what is it” (Deane 2007: 206). For instance, alternative media emerge in a controlling government with concentration of ownership, leading to heavier sanction to alternative media journalists (such as being imprisoned) in Malaysia (Allan 2009). The lack of media freedom triggers forms of alternative media to balance accountability for the media by opening more opportunities for citizens to express themselves.

This scenario might be driven by the fact that the most established alternative voices (in terms of time of establishment) in Malaysia are Harakah, a newspaper of the Islamic opposition party, first published in 1984, and Aliran Monthly, an online magazine, first

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published by an independent – and the oldest – human rights movement in 1987, and which aims to perform “A Reform Movement dedicated to Justice, Freedom and Solidarity” (Aliran Online: http://aliran.com/archives/more.html). These, however, are examples of voices that have not been seen as ‘alternative’; they are not, argued Ling (2003), considered democraticising information flow in the country. Rather, they are assumed as dissenting publications. Harakah, for example, has faced certain restrictions on selling to the public except party members; the newspaper can only be sold in the PAS centres (not all news outlets) and can only publish stories about the party (Ling 2003).

Harakah can be cited as an example of an alternative voice that includes both Islamic and political news. Although generally the context is Islamic, political news always dominates the public sphere (Elliot and Greer 2010) (thus the assumption is a good reception of Harakah news). This, however, is not the case for Harakah, which, nevertheless, operates in an Islamic country. Some of the reasons can be associated with the tendency of Harakah to publish news opposing the status quo, adhere to news values different from the mainstream newspapers, angle the story based on a certain view and target different groups of readership (Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid 2007).

To some, such exclusion of an alternative voice, however, does have effects on the dominance of the mainstream media, although it is still insufficient (Brown 2005, George 2007). This was especially true after the sacking of the ex-Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in 1998 for sex and corruption allegations (Brown 2005, Carabella-Anthony 2005 Chin 2003, Zaharom 2002b). After this incident, the ‘emergence’ and potential of the new media as the avenue to voice up alternative voices have been more dominant. This includes many bloggers sharing opinions that have long been ‘fermented’ by the mainstream media.

For example, it is argued that Malaysiakini, an alternative online newspaper, legitimises alternative views in Malaysia, thus democratizes political discussions (Steele 2009).

Steele’s ethnographic study of the newsroom at Malaysiakini demonstrates that the view of journalists can be associated with two goals: (1) ‘to give everyone a voice’ and (2) to give voice to the voiceless (Steele 2009: 94). This is done by covering stories marginalised by the mainstream media such as the rally by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) and providing raw video of events to serve as documentary proof of a particular incident for the

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audience to judge. This may be the reason for the widening readership of Malaysiakini (Steele 2009), compared with its early years of minority readers (Ling 2003).

This differentiates Malaysiakini, which can be seen as a traditional news provider (Steele 2009), compared with blogs, albeit both are providing alternative views. Blogs have proved themselves influential, especially when the ex-Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi admitted that BN’s biggest mistake during the general election in 2008 was to ignore the influence of the Internet (The Straits Times 2008). He remarked, 'We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television were supposed to be important, but the young people were looking at SMS and blogs’.

Thus, Ali Salman and Mohd Safar (2011) reminded the government in power of the danger of underestimating the strength of the new media in changing the political landscape of the country. This is mainly because, if the penetration of the Internet in Malaysia is compared with its neighbour Singapore (which is more developed), it is striking that despite the lower penetration, online activities in Malaysia are very much active, and most topics discussed online concern politics (George 2005). Moreover, although there are no specific laws regulating activities, blogging in Malaysia is monitored by the Malaysian Communication Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and 80 websites were shut down by MCMC in 2010 that featured sensitive content including pornography, anti government sentiments and racial hatred (Abdul Latiff Ahmad et al. 2011).

Besides these developments, alternative voices are also published in other ‘newer’

types of newspapers in Malaysia. Local newspaper Sinar Harian (SH) and the first free newspaper The Sun (TS) are examples of alternative local views from different states in Malaysia. Stories that are considered not newsworthy such as community gatherings and local problems such as drainage problems are now in the news. The latter highlights strong investigative reporting on political wrongdoings (see Citizen Nades, the column dedicated to this), which aims to reach urban and young readers. These distinct angles of news invite greater readership (see Chapter 7), public discussions on various aspects of subject matter they are not familiar with (when referred to the mainstream newspapers coverage).

However, this represents the strength of alternative media. On the other hand, the trend in development is observed to become more institutionalised and less hierarchical

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(Allan 2006, Atton and Hamilton 2008, Fenton 2010, George 2007). Particularly in Malaysia, although the effects of alternative media are numerous, they are still highly influenced by inherent political forces (George 2007) that indirectly force the alternative voices to be confined to a more ‘organised’ news organisation. Even (generally) in blogging activities, there is an emerging trend of celebrity bloggers dominating online conversations (Allan 2006) that has started to ‘organise’ and dominate discussions.

One form of alternative media in Malaysia is non-partisan news. The tradition of publishing opposition news is older than publishing non-partisan news, mainly because the law allows opposition parties to publish their own newspapers within certain limitations, such as selling them exclusively to party members.³⁶ Non-partisan news has had a harder time distributing newspapers because business entity with no political affiliation can sell their newspapers to a wider readership than the partisan newspapers, thus posing the threat of an almost ‘unlimited’ readership. However, both non-partisan and oppositional news are attractive to Malaysian readers due to the media situation discussed earlier. Thus, the state uses such laws to suspend publications that are of threat to them. For example, in 2000 the Home Ministry revoked the permits of Detik³⁷ magazine and Al-Wasilah³⁸ and the weekly newspaper Ekslusif.³⁹

Investigative journalism is also fundamental to allowing alternative views to be heard, especially when the subject of the investigation is related to politicians’ wrongdoings. “The definition of investigative journalism is multifaceted. It is original reporting full of rigorous documentation and numerous interviews. It is fiscally conservative, probing waste, fraud, and abuse in government agencies. It is adversarial and populist, challenging the powers that be.

It brings with it moral judgments” (Houston 2010: 139). Therefore, it is not unusual to see news organisations that adhere to investigative reporting under threat.

However, the future of investigative journalism is potentially overwhelming following the development of new media, online journalism and the rise of non-profit organisations.

This type of journalism offers healthy public spheres and better informed citizens, with better opportunities for readers to participate in news construction provided by newspapers that run issues raised by its readers.⁴⁰

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The aggressiveness with which alternative views can be heard has turned Malaysia’s Internet development into a paradox in relation to Singapore, the neighbouring country.

Although Internet penetration in Malaysia is much lower than in Singapore, politically contentious journalism is highly visible in Malaysia in terms of the number of people accessing the Internet and the frequency of daily news updates (George 2005). George defined contentious journalism as “the tradition of the radical alternative press, [that]

challenges dominant ideologies and attempts to democratize public discourse” (George 2005:

904).

It can be argued that the Internet in Malaysia is “the most viable alternative source to access information not accessible in the mainstream media” (Wang 1998: 75). The development of the Internet has been positively seen by the state as a tool to support Vision 2020,⁴¹ realised through projects such as the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).⁴² However, there is a reverse development, when the opposition forces have had unprecedented online success (Wang 2001). Abbot (2001) describes the emergence of the Internet in Malaysia as

“vibrant societal group exist[ing] largely regardless of the regulatory environment” (Abbot 2001: 11).

One example of this is news blogging, a genre also seen as the birth of a new form of citizen journalism in Malaysia that allows greater participation by the masses. With the tagline “Your Source of Independent News”, Malaysia Today⁴³ allows comments on the news published on the web without any censorship, regardless of its criticism of both state and opposition parties. This is an example of journalism activity that supports user-generated content. The strength of blogs in Malaysia is not only said to have influenced voters during the 2008 General Elections, but also broken the dominance of the elites when Jef Ooi, once a blogger, was appointed as Malaysian Opposition Member of Parliament due to his strong criticism of the system (Katz 2008). Another online newspaper, MalaysiaKini, also enjoys greater control over its non-partisan news content because of its existence online, which is not controlled through media laws applied to print media (Abbot 2001).

Nevertheless, although the Internet enjoys much less censorship from the state than its print counterpart (Abbot 2001), seditious and libellous content posted by web administrators and commentators could still be charged under print media law. Besides this insecurity, there is also no guarantee of how long minimal censorship of the Internet will continue to be

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granted by the state (George 2005). George also argued that the rise of the Internet and the growing volume of alternative voices in Malaysia are insufficient to undermine state control of media industry. However, in terms of the state, the needs to censor remains, argued not as a tool of control, but to ensure beneficial information is filtered and used by the majority of users from various sources without fear of the content opposing Eastern cultural context (Samsudin and Latiffah 2011).

1.7 Conclusion

This chapter has discussed the background of Malaysian politics and economy to provide the context of this study. After independence from British colonisation on 31 August 1957, the economy progressed, and its recent activity has made Malaysia one of the fastest growing countries in the world. However, because of its politics, some have categorised Malaysia as a one-party system, mainly dominated by BN, hence the stability of the economy despite the multi-ethnic make-up of its society. The press system is largely influenced by both the history of colonisation and the current multi ethnic population that comprises of three main ethnicities. It is generally described as having concentrated ownership and limited press freedom.

The one-party system and domination of the BN has barely been interrupted or questioned, alongside the issue of the lack of press freedom, until recently. Today, people have channels to voice their opinion questioning newsworthiness in the mainstream newspapers and the limitation of the freedom of the press. Both print and online versions are accountable to environments that characterise the Malaysian press, with various restrictions still imposed. These are all in line with the notion of ‘Asian values’, embedded in an ‘Asian journalism’. Within this specificity of the Malaysian media landscape and its complexity, in order to understand newsworthiness construction in Malaysia, there is a need to consider the general news research conducted by scholars around the world and see whether it is useful to study news construction in Malaysia. In this light, in the next chapter, I will discuss literature related to newsworthiness criteria and news values from the ‘objectivist’ and ‘subjectivist’

points of view – the views that have dominated the way newsworthiness has been understood both by scholars and practitioners.

36 CHAPTER 2