Public discourse commonly takes place in public forums of free media. The 4th estate provides an external dimension to the democratic check and balance to the executive (1st estate), the legislative (2nd estate), and the judiciary (3rd estate). This paper discusses the rise of a social media 5th estate, as exemplified by online public discourse surrounding the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, and the country's ensuing electoral change of government. Drawing upon thematic analyses of 1MDB-related comments in the official Facebook page of Free Malaysia Today, this paper illustrates the rise of a social media 5th estate in the run-up to Pakatan Harapan's win in the Malaysian 2018 14th General Election. Since international public disclosure in 2015 of former Malaysian premier Najib Razak's purported siphoning of billions of ringgit from 1MDB, the scandal continues to be a trending topic on Malaysian social media. The online discourse of 1MDB evolved from heated posts discussing Najib's culpability and criticism of his Barisan Nasional administration, into support to the opposition Pakatan Harapan coalition, particularly in the run-up to the 14th Malaysian General Elections (GE14) that was held on 9th May 2018. Pakatan Harapan's win, following the social media support, exemplifies the power of a netizen-fuelled 5th estate.

Background and Purpose: This article analyses the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) political scandal as a case study to examine how an issue is discursively shaped online by netizens’ perceptions of the scandal. The study has two objectives: firstly, to explore netizens’ perceptions of 1MDB and how they reacted to the news reported based on the online exposés appearing throughout 2015. Secondly, it aims to examine whether the discourse regarding 1MDB among netizens on an online platform, The Malaysian Insider Facebook page, meets the characteristics of a practical discourse in an online context, as proposed by Jurgen Habermas.   Methodology: A total of 1950 Facebook comments related to 210 1MDB articles in 2015 were analysed. The articles were linked and published by The Malaysia Insider Facebook page. The analysis was conducted using thematic analysis via NVivo software to explore the perceptions of the selected netizens about 1MDB and how the online discourse on 1MDB matched the characteristics proposed by Jurgen Habermas for practical online discourse.   Findings: Four themes emerged, namely Najib as the Prime Minister, the 1MDB Debate Controversy, the Opposition position on 1MDB and the investigation of the 1MDB scandal. Based on the online discourse, it was evident that consumption of 1MDB news on Facebook led Malaysian netizens to form their own perceptions of the scandal. The emergent themes also illustrate that the online discourse met the characteristics of practical discourse suggested by Jurgen Habermas.   Contributions:  This empirical contribution fills a gap in the current knowledge as few studies have been conducted on the online discourse of the 1MDB political scandal among Malaysian netizens. Currently, no research is documented on the 1MDB political scandal from the netizens’ perspective other than the first author’s PhD thesis.  This research is, therefore, beneficial to new media studies as researchers normally investigate or explore a specific issue when it has a conclusion; here, a risk was taken to conduct the study while 1MDB was still under investigation.   Keywords: 1MDB, 2015, Najib Razak, netizens, Malaysia.   Cite as: Mohd Nor, N. H., & Baharuddin, Z. (2021). Malaysian netizens’ perceptions of 1MDB: A thematic analysis.  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(1), 351-372. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp351-372