Role of the Internet in Malaysia

Excerpt: Malaysia: Widening the Public Sphere. By Larry Diamond. From an essay on Liberation Technology in the Journal of Democracy.

URL = http://irevolution.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/diamond-21-3.pdf

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Larry Diamond:

“A crucial pillar of authoritarian rule is control of information. Through blogs (there are currently more than a hundred million worldwide), blog sites, online chat rooms, and more formal online media, the Internet provides dramatic new possibilities for pluralizing flows of information and widening the scope of commentary, debate, and dissent.

One of the most successful instances of the latter type is Malaysiakini, an online newspaper that has become Malaysia’s principal alternative source of news and commentary.6 As Freedom House has documented, Malaysia lacks freedom of the press. The regime (both the state and the ruling Barisan Nasional [BN] coalition) dominates print and broadcast media through direct ownership and monopoly practices. Thus it can shape what Malaysians read and see, and it can punish critical journalists with dismissal. Repressive laws severely constrain freedom to report, publish, and broadcast. However, as a rapidly developing country with high literacy, Malaysia has witnessed explosive growth of Internet access (and recently, broadband access), from 15 percent of the population in 2000 to 66 percent in 2009 (equal to Taiwan and only slightly behind Hong Kong).7 The combination of tight government control of the conventional media, widespread Internet access, and relative freedom on the Internet created an opening for online journalism in Malaysia, and two independent journalists—Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran—ventured into it. Opponents of authoritarian rule since their student days, Gan and Chandran became seized during the 1998 reformasi period with the need to reform the media and bring independent news and reporting to Malaysia. Using about US$9,000 of their own money (a tiny fraction of what it would take to start a print newspaper), they launched Malaysiakini in November 1999. Almost immediately, they gained fame by exposing how an establishment newspaper had digitally cropped jailed opposition leader (and former deputy prime minister) Anwar Ibrahim from a group photo of ruling-party politicians.

From its inception, Malaysiakini has won a loyal and growing readership by providing credible, independent reporting on Malaysian politics and governance. As its readership soared, that of the mainstream newspapers fell. Suddenly, Malaysians were able to read about such long-taboo subjects as corruption, human-rights abuses, ethnic discrimination, and police brutality. Now the online paper posts in English about fifteen news stories a day, in addition to opinion pieces, letters, readers’ comments, and daily satire (in Cartoonkini), plus translations and original material in Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. Malaysiakini reports scandals that no establishment paper would touch, such as massive cost overruns related to conflicts of interest at the country’s main port agency and ongoing financial misconduct at the government-supported Bank Islam Malaysia. With the regime’s renewed legal assault on Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysiakini is the only place where Malaysians can turn for independent reporting on the legal persecution of the opposition leader. In July 2008, it became Malaysia’s most visited news site with about 2.5 million visitors per month. Yet, like many online publications worldwide, it still strives for financial viability.

While Malaysia today is no less authoritarian than when Malaysiakini began publishing a decade ago, it is more competitive and possibly closer to a democratic breakthrough than at any time in the last four decades. If a transition occurs, it will be mainly due to political factors—the coalescence of an effective opposition and the blunders of an arrogant regime. In addition, economic and social change is generating a better-educated and more diverse population, less tolerant of government paternalism and control. Polling and other data show that young Malaysians in particular support the (more democratic) opposition. But it is hard to disentangle these political and social factors from the expansion of the independent public sphere that Malaysiakini has spearheaded. In March 2008, the BN made its worst showing at the polls in half a century, losing its two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time since independence. Facilitating this was the growing prominence of online journalism, which diminished the massive BN advantage in media access and “shocked the country” by documenting gross police abuse of demonstrators, particularly those of Indian descent.

Malaysiakini and its brethren perform a number of democratic functions. They report news and convey images that Malaysians would not otherwise see. They provide an uncensored forum for commentary and debate, giving rise to a critical public sphere. They offer space and voice to those whose income, ethnicity, or age put them on the margins of society. They give the political opposition, which is largely shut out of the establishment media, a chance to make its case. In the process, they educate Malaysians politically and foster more democratic norms. Many online publications and Internet blog sites perform similar functions in other semi-authoritarian countries, such as Nigeria, and in emerging and illiberal democracies. But is it possible for these functions to take root in a country as authoritarian as China is today?” (http://irevolution.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/diamond-21-3.pdf)