Political history in Malaysia has witnessed how ruling government remain intact in dominating Malaysian politic with the majority support. However, the 2008 General Election changed the static trend when the election result showed the rise of opposition party who begin to win popular support whereas for the ruling government party who barely win, they no longer enjoy the privilege of winning majority vote and becoming the dominant party.
Among many reasons why the change or so called political reformation took place and what happen after that, according to analysts is credited to the role of cyberspace development. ‘Cyberspace’ according to Cambridge Dictionary Third Edition can be regarded as the Internet as a wide virtual and unreal area without limits where one can interact with people and discover information about almost any subject. Meanwhile, the cyber politic can be defined as ‘politics being formed by computer technologies’. For this paper, cyber-politic intends to discuss the relation of three aspects that is between netizen (the Internet or cyberspace community), the Internet or utilization of cyberspace and political issues.
Whether in literature or oral debate, there is less discussion discussing on relationship between cyberspace and politics especially in Malaysia whereas the role of the internet grows increasingly profound day by day. This term paper thus intends to highlight and discuss what issues have been circulated around Malaysia especially those of related to the cyber-politics. In general, this composition tries to answer two research questions that are; first, how cyber-space play its role in shaping and influencing current mood in Malaysian politics and second, what are the advantages and disadvantages of application of cyberspace can do to the political institution.
Functions of Cyberspace in Malaysian Politic
To answer how cyberspace plays its role in shaping mood in Malaysian politics, one must first look at the internet usage among Malaysians. According to World Bank indicator reported in 2010, the internet users in Malaysia were last measured at 15989772.57. The Malaysian Internet Exchange (MyIX) reported that the internet usage has been increased by 51% in 2013 as compared to in 2012. These infer that the use of the internet among Malaysian community has grown profoundly from year to year.
Perhaps, one of the reasons why the usage of internet is intensely increased is due to the multi-functioning dimension of the internet that it can offer to cyber consumers. Over times, cyberspace or internet has undergone a significant development especially when the internet is manipulated as not only a mean for communication and technology but also means to benefit the social institutions like economic, religion, education and politics.
In Malaysia, the role of cyberspace which becomes a crucial force in political realm has existed first perhaps, in 1998 of what is called as the ‘virtual reformation movement’. The first reformation website to be known was Anwar Online, established on September 1, 1998. Since then, many other websites were actively developed and created to the extent that this phenomenon is named as the ‘rise of virtual reformation movement’. The restricted access made for opposition parties to discourage them to actively engage in politics, especially in mainstream media could be the main factor that drives to such phenomenon to happen. Since there is no or limited effective tool to disseminate their information, ideas, opinions and dissent to the government, people start to explore the utility of cyberspace. Moreover, Malaysia during this time was embarked to a new phase of technological and economical-based program with the launching of state’s technological and information policy, the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996 which aimed at improving peoples’ literacy on computers.
The main functions of the cyberspace and the internet to politics can be divided into three. First and foremost is the cyberspace role in providing unlimited access and space to the users for them to circulate information. The internet becomes alternative media for campaigning, disseminating message and information. The opposition parties in Malaysia like those in Pakatan Rakyat (PR) make use effectively this kind of media to reach their supporters and advertise themselves to the people. This is the place where their message and information can be circulated freely, fast and widely spread especially when users start to share the information to the rest virtual community. Cyberspace is used by the opposition parties to promote their ideas and resolutions as well as publicize the demonstration information and schedule, political speech or other related activities organize by them. On the part of virtual community, cyberspace is utilized in a way that they can voice out their views, suggestions, support, dissatisfaction or dissent and can remain anonymous if they opt to.
The recent example was during the Kajang by-election held in March 2014. Some supporters of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) posted their rage and dissatisfaction online because of Anwar’s conviction on his recent sodomy trial which halted Anwar from contesting in the Kajang by-election. Kajang area that is considered as semi-urban area relatively enjoy high internet connectivity with Kajang youth who basically live their life with the internet connectivity can be the reason why Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and PKR strategize one of their campaign approaches to wage cyberwar rather than campaigning through typical method.
The second function of cyberspace in politic is it can act as a tool for governance especially by the federal government. Cyberspace has becomes the main subject for the government to set up and execute cyber policies that are meant to ease and transform government services to the people. The transformation includes government services which are made online. Another recent one is the government’s education policy on School-based Assessment (PBS) system. The system that replaced examination as student’s assessment in school required the teachers to fill up and report each and every student’s performance online. Currently, the system is put into hold temporarily for review since teachers-who are the most affected by the system- and parents complaints about the deficiency found in the system.
The third function of cyberspace is to accommodate social media that grows significance in every aspect of human life including politics. Malaysian internet users are very much familiar with social media. Study shown 90% of internet users in Malaysia have access to social media sites, Malaysians are avid users of Facebook, they prefer to surf the internet rather than to watch television, they view social network sites 14 billion times every month and YouTube as the leading social media of all online videos watched in Malaysia
The role of social media in disseminating message and information effectively is acknowledged, however social media is also known for having double-edged sword. Social media circulate information as well as circulate message or information with obscenity, satirical, defamation and sedition-content. This kind of messages and information are widely circulated in the social media or sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others. Example of the application of social media with negative elements and content in Malaysia politics include the video on ‘Dato T and Anwar conspiracy’, couple of blogs where the writers are alleged of insulting royal institution and the role of social media in Bersih rally 2.0.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Cyberspace to Politics
Tan (2010) mentions that how effective the internet can do in social mobilization can be argued in two manners; first, the internet or virtual space is seen as an effective tool in influencing and embarking changes in real world whereas second, the internet is seen as a tool that would not be able to bring change and reformation to the real life situation. The first opinion that agrees on utility value of the internet can be explain in the case of WTO Protest in Seattle in 1999 where a large group of independent media organizations made use of cyberspace in gathering information and crowds estimated of ten thousand people from every part of the world to show their protests to the WTO ministerial meeting regarding to the unfair system of free trade and the various trading rules the major governments were about to discuss. As a result to this massive protest, the WTO conference ended with a failure.
For the second opinion which claim how ineffective internet can be is based on infrastructure problem that is the digital divide. Digital divide here means the existence of gap whether it is in the form of who is getting the access and who is not, in the form of domination of cyberspace by the hegemony language and culture (English) and the gap between those literate and illiterate in information and technology (IT).
Among the other benefits cyberspace can offer to political activities and participation as highlighted by same author are it can counteract political deprivation and limited access suffer by the most opposition parties, it encourages active participation from the civil society, allows more interaction to happen like interactions between man, media and computer. Forum as a form of interactivity in cyberspace allows everybody to freely post their concerns and opinions thus ensure more voices to be heard. Rachel Gong in her research findings found that opposition candidates benefitted more as the result of having blog. She argued that candidates who are bloggers are likely to win in the election seven times more than candidates who are not.
Like other imperfect technology and breakthrough, cyberspace also possesses limitations and defects. Among the limitations is first, the fact that total internet users are relatively small as compared to total population of Malaysia. Hence, only small number is in fact directly received information or whatever available in the cyberspace and not all information and message can reach to the whole population as the conventional media can do.
Secondly, when particular user has his own preference party in politic, he will tend to focus on one side only and this include his preference in choosing which website to go. From this, internet users can develop tendency of biasness towards websites correspond to their beliefs and values. This tendency will cause them to disregard and simply reject the diverse and contradict opinions which may contain fact and truth. Such biasness could impair their rational and sound judgment. Thirdly, especially for those who own website, to manage the website itself is a time-consuming. It has to be developed, maintained frequently and to keep it up to date, attractive and informative to attract others to visit.
Last but not the least is the defect of cyberspace that has potential to be sabotage and hack. The virtual system also is open to be crushed, default, error or even disappear from the system within the cyberspace. In fact, the main concern about the limitation of cyberspace and internet in politic is perhaps it can create and intensify misunderstanding and disorder to the sensitive community in Malaysia especially when the virtual space is used for spreading hatred and obscene message as well as defamation and sedition message.
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, the utilization of cyberspace can be no longer a secondary importance in politics considering its massive impacts to Malaysian politics. The functions of cyberspace particularly the internet play a major role in Malaysian politic in a way that it provides unlimited access and borderless space to the users for them to effectively circulate information. Besides, cyberspace can also become a tool of governance for ruling government since the initial purpose of government is to provide the best and effective services as possible to the people. That is how the government comes up with its cyber-policy. Moreover, cyberspace also provides the growth of social media among the net community which in return proved to be a double-edged sword. Social media or social networking sites can not only circulate information and promotion but also has ability in circulating obscenity, defamation and sedition. The utilization of cyberspace for political purposes also offers its own benefits and weaknesses. The use of cyberspace also may explain why political participation among the youth of Malaysia increase since cyberspace and the internet is more appeal to the youngster generation who is savvy IT since this is a place where they can obtain a quick, easy and low cost information on current political issues.
If in the US and other developed nations, the biggest concern pertaining to cyber politics will be their issues on cyber-security or cyberwar with other nations but in Malaysia, cyber politic perhaps is still on its infant age and still developing to the next level