New Media, Old Politics: Web-pages as a New Political outreach in Malaysia

Abstract

The introduction of Internet to some extent has changed the lives of Malaysian people. The internet has been beneficial to mankind in almost every aspect of their daily routine. From trading to education, shopping to referring for health advice, internet emerged as a necessity in the lives of modern people. So does in politics. D’Alessio (2000) observed that “web based political information has been the focus of researchers since 1996 presidential campaign” in the United States. How about in a developing country like Malaysia? Since Malaysia is practicing democracy, do political parties in the country make use of the internet as a mean to disseminate their ideologies? This paper is based on a study of web-pages published by eight political parties in Malaysia. Out of the eight parties selected, six are from the component parties of the National Front, the ruling government, and two are from the oppositions. This study focuses on the characteristics of the web-pages in their effort to penetrate to the target masses. Emphasized were given to the richness in the content of the web-pages, comprehensiveness in the coverage of current issues, interactivity, linkages, attractiveness of the design and abilities of incorporating multimedia functions. In general, this study found that the political parties in Malaysia tried to outdo each other in designing their web-pages in order to get to their potential voters. The oppositions especially utilize the web-pages as a meaningful campaign tool since they were curbed from using other forms of mainstream media such as the print and the electronic media. Thus, the web-pages have emerged as a significant new weapon in an old political war in Malaysia.