Malaysian Newspaper Discourse and Citizen Participation

Abstract

Newspapers are a particularly important tool for the communication of government agenda, policies and issues to the general public. An informed public makes for better democracy and active citizen participation, with citizens able to make well-informed decisions about the governance of their nation. This paper observes the role of Malaysian mainstream newspapers in the facilitation of citizen participation to exercise their political rights and responsibilities through a critical discourse analysis on newspaper coverage of the New Economic Model (NEM), a landmark policy of the Najib Administration. It is revealed that Malaysian newspapers carry an ideology that depicts the government and the elite in positions of power. The government, the Prime Minister, the NEM and the NEAC report were foregrounded and positively highlighted. Although many of the articles contained calls for the people to prepare and support the NEM, issues pertaining to the people and the importance of the support of the people were frequently being backgrounded or left out of the newspapers. News reporting should facilitate understanding of government agenda, because the news media is a main avenue of communication between a government and its people. The failure of the press to inform, communicate and stimulate citizen participation among the people could very well prove to be damaging toward the credibility of the local press. The mainstream news press should provide access and support citizen participation by recognising that they are a valuable resource for citizen decision-making and for democracy.

The Refugee Swap Deal in Malaysian Online News Reports: Ideology and Representation

“…Teo, 2000;Gale, 2004;Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008;Baker et al, 2008;Khosravinik, 2009;McKay et al, 2011). This paper also confirms research done in Malaysia by Pang (2006), Azlan et al (2012) and Gill et al (2012), that there is a strong agenda from government linked media to frame reports in a particular, pro-government way. Had The NST and The Star reported more different voices and used less strategies of mitigation, it would have adopted the "audi alteram partem" approach, which is in line with the ethics of proper journalism.…”

“…All newspapers under investigation show a high degree of quoting a single person extensively. This comes as no surprise, since Azlan et al (2012) already provided the insight that government linked media prominently cover Malaysian government officials in a positive way. Most probably Malaysiakini, by quoting Australian government officials, is trying to be non-partisan and to employ a strategy to avoid critical sentences towards Malaysian government officials and to avoid practicing a "progovernment policy" (Pang, 2006, p. 72).…”

Expanding media arena, communication skills and youth participation in newspaper discourse

“…In other words, if youths are important beneficiaries of sustainable development and thus, need to participate in shaping their future, they need to actively participate in discourses that largely shape that future. To join in discussing their future in the media, they need access to media, media literacy, writing, speaking and production skills as well as sufficient interest in discourse topics (Rahim et al, 2012).…”

“…Newspaper is a major medium for political mobilization and political debate (Azlam et al, 2012). It makes information available to enable citizens make informed decisions about politics, economy, security and community life.…”

MH370 and MH17 airplane catastrophes

“…Little is known about stance in news reports in the Malaysian context. Media framing studies have shown that mainstream newspapers tend to quote government sources whereas alternative newspapers quote opposition leaders and religious leaders as news sources in controversial events, such as the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial-cum-political scandal involving high-ranking politicians (Murudi & Ting, 2019) and race-related issues (Azlan, Rahim, & Basri, 2012;Ismail & Ahmad, 2014;Khalid, 2011;Yang & De Rycker, 2017;Yang & Ishak, 2012;Yang & Leong, 2017). However, as the researchers are from the field of communication, they do not analyse how the news sources are quoted.…”