It is opined that the mass media forces attention on certain issues by constantly projecting them and suggesting its audiences to think about them. This article attempts to focus on the Agenda Setting function of English news media in Malaysia during the 13th GE13 employing quantitative content analysis. Two English newspapers were analyzed, namely The Star and New Straits Times with 1362 news items identified. In order to gauge the public agenda, quantitative survey were done three times in the months of February, March and April 2013 respectively leading up to the election on 5th of May, 2013. The study found out that the agenda setting function of the English newspapers is important in transferring issue salience and issue attributes to their audiences. Individuals who highly rely on news from the media shall be likely influenced by the Agenda Setting effect of the media. There was no significant relationship between the English newspapers and the public agenda of the main ethnic groups in Malaysia. Hence, the public agenda of the Malays, Chinese and Indians have no significant relationship with the English Newspapers. Future studies could employ a qualitative approach in order to find answers to the reasons for lack of relationship between the English newspapers and ethnic public agenda.

The objective of this study is to examine political blogging, particularly in relation to electoral process in Malaysia. This study used Grounded Theory approach and content analysis method by analyzing 193 internet political blogs. The selected blogs were categorized into three main categories: the pro-government blogs, the opposition blogs and the neutral blogs. The finding reveals that the opposition parties utilized more blogs to discuss local political issues compared to the ruling parties. Both the oppositions and the ruling parties generally not refrained from attacking other political parties and saw it as a tool of campaigning. There was evidence that the popularity of certain politician was heighten because of their blog, even though many said such popularity did not contribute to vote payoff. The finding shows that 114 political blogs did not support the government and only 28 blogs supported the government. The main issues discussed by the bloggers were about the leadership of the Prime Minister. It also shows that Malay bloggers dominated the political blogs. They liked to use their pseudonyms to protect their real identities. Most of them were male and the youth were the most active. This study implies that political blog was widely used by the cyber society to share information and to speak their mind freely and openly. Therefore, more researchers should concentrate more on studying political blogging as key media of political communication especially in a multi-ethnic society. The contributions of this study include: (1) developing a holistic understanding on the mechanism of government website utilization, (2) identifying a few new theoretical concepts that were not explored in previous studies, (3) revealing that value acquisition is the essence of government website utilization, and (4) formulating a derivative conceptual model for delineating the process of information source selection.

This paper challenges to identify the origins behind the weakness of the relationship between the center and regions in Sudan, through examining the major principles of resource governance mainly during federal system and interim period following the singing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. It demonstrates that, within the country, successive constitutions and their relevant laws have empowered the center over resource governance and weakened lower units and thus, they fuel contestation between the center and regions. The main objectives of this paper are to categorize allocation of power over resource between different tires of government, and to clarify institutional capacity of revenue distributive among regions as well. Content analysis is used to analyze a body of data that contains document, reports, articles and interviews. The paper shows that centralized nature of the government influences tailoring of equitable allocation of power over resource. Wealth sharing' institutions emergent during interim period of peace such as Fiscal, Finance, Allocation and Monitoring Commission were found weak, consequently, were impeded shortly after peace collapsed in 20011, as well as the absence of adequate, fair criteria challenges appropriate allocation of wealth among regions. The paper also finds that presence of authorized devolution system is only the way to secure reasonable distribution of power between the center and regions, adequate distribution of revenue among regions and normalize the relationship between different tiers of government. This work contributes to knowledge as it deepens the understanding and advance current debate on the contesting relationship between the center and regions in Sudan.

No abstract

The 2018 General Election (PRU) marked a significant point in the history of Malaysian politics when the major opposition bloc Pakatan Harapan (PH) ended Barisan Nasional (BN) rule of 60 years since gaining independence in 1957. However, the PH government, led by ex-premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, only lasted 22 months. Accordingly, the sudden collapse of the PH government drew many to offer their respective analyses. James Chin (2020) wrote one of them titled ‘Malaysia: The 2020 Putsch for Malay Islam Supremacy’. He argued that, amongst the many reasons attributable to its sudden collapse, one stood out – the position of Islam and Malay supremacy in Malaysia. Since Malaysia is predominantly a Malay-Muslim country, such a profound claim warrants a thorough response. Thus, this study’s objective is to analyse and offer critiques on Chin’s work based on the three main factors, namely the concept of Malay supremacy, unreadiness of Malays to share power with non-Malays and the position of non-Malays in the top government positions. This study utilised documentary analysis to uplift the discussion to fit the social contract concept and the Federal Constitution and strike a balance between extremist and utopian ideas that best suit Malaysia’s political development reality. The study’s main findings can be narrowed down to show the actual picture of Malaysian political genesis’ uniqueness based on its own identity, which constantly rejuvenates and evolves across time and space. Keywords: General Election 2018, Pakatan Harapan, Islam, Malay supremacy, Malaysian political genesis.