(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Conference on Media & Mass Communication Osaka, Japan
has been further constrained that ordinary citizens and concerned civil society groups have
not been able to fully express their views and to directly participate in the country’s
democratic processes (Ibid., 2001). And the existing media have been criticised on grounds
of their apparent inability to foster public discussions by espousing divergent social opinion.
The public sphere is critically important for modern societies. It serves as a forum to
communicate collectively on relevant issues, and allows citizens to inform themselves about
societal developments and to observe and control political, economic and other elites. It is
an open space for communication. A public sphere has four basic elements: (1) publics; (2)
spaces where publics may assemble for communication; (3) media of communication, such as
newspaper and books; and (4) discourses (Yang, 2003). By recognising its substantial role,
many scholars have formulated normative theories which describe how the public sphere
should be structured in order to ideally fulfil this role. The most prominent such normative
theory is certainly the ‘participatory’ (or ‘discussion’) model, with Jurgen Habermas as its
strongest advocate (eg. Habermas, 1989,1992,1998; cf. Calhoun,1992, as cited in Gerhards &
Schafer, 2010). Accordingly to this model, public communication should include a wide
range of relevant topics, evaluations and arguments and should strive for the ‘widest possible
empowerment’, i.e. extensive ‘popular inclusion’ of different actors (Ferree et al.,
2002a;296ff, as cited in Gerhards & Schafer, 2010).
The internet is shown to have had reinforcing effects on information-seeking and
sociability. Recent findings confirms that certain web uses contribute to civic engagement
and trust (Shah et al., 2005), increased volunteerism (Jennings & Zeitner, 2003), enhanced
personal interactions (Hampton & Wellman, 2003) and increased news consumption (Althaus
& Tewksbury, 2000). The new media also allow people to form opinions, rather than just to
express them. And the question here is, does internet offer a new, more powerful medium of
the promotion of democracy? The media can play a positive role in democracy only if there
is an enabling environment that allows them to do so. The Malaysian first fully online
newspaper, Malaysiakini gained prominence soon after its inception. It is also through this
website that many Malaysians found avenues to articulate their views and grievances that
would normally not see the light of day in the mainstream media.
The popularity of the Internet among Malaysian seems to have put the government in
a dilemma. On the one hand, the government hails the Internet use as one of the successes of
its much-touted Multimedia Super Corridor project. On the other, the Internet is also a cause
for concern especially when it has become the favourite and convenient means of
communication among critics of the government and pro-reformasi (reform) supporters
(Anuar, 2000).
The Internet offers the most powerful communications medium yet for maximising
information flows. It enables that efficient promotion of political option and provides
individuals with access to a huge amount of up-to-date information by which to make their
choice (Dahlberg, 2001). The new media are also not connected to political power and
capital, and it has the capacity to facilitate various new types of interactions among citizens
(Chang, 2005). Somehow, the participation is limited by the problems of assembling large
numbers of people, of the ignorance of ordinary citizens, and of the inequalities in the
distribution of resources which affect people’s capacity for involvement (Mackay, p.388,
2000).
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