(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Calculating the user’s growth rate from the year 2000 to
2004, the average annual growth rate is estimated at 52.91
per cent. If this annual growth rate of Malaysia’s Internet
users is taken into account, at the end of 2005 the total
number of Internet users would reach 15.35 million. This
represents more than half of Malaysia’s population in 2004.
(Rahmat, 2008:85)
Meanwhile if we are to make a comparison on a rate of population and the total use of Internet for
countries in East Asia as shown in Table 6, it clearly shows that the use of Internet in those
countries concerned were very much inbalanced.
Country
Brunei
Cambodia
Indonesia
Philippines
Laos
Malaysia
Singapore
Myanmar
Thailand
Vietnam
Table 6: ASEAN Internet Usage and Population*
Population (2009) est
388,190
14,494,293
240,271,522
97,976,603
6,834,345
25,715,819
4,657,542
48,137,741
65,998,436
88,576,758
Internet users latest data
217,000
74,000
30,000,000
24,000,000
130,000
16,902,600
3.370.000
108,900
16,100,000
21,963,117
User Not Connected*
171,190
14,420,293
210,271,522
73,976,603
6,704,345
8,813,219
1,287,542
48,028,841
49,898,436
6,661,3641
Sources: compiled from data available at http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
* Calculated by the researcher based on the data gained from the internetworldstats
The advancement in information and technology in Malaysia had resulted in the increased
of web’s especially the political blogs which was difficult to be monitored or filtered. This
development had posed a challenge and threatened the domination of mainstream media which
all this while acting as an agent in distributing news and information to the government. Through
the political blogs it offered a vast array of discussion and freedom to the bloggers in which the
mainstream media would not offer. Eventhough the freedom given was hoped to assist in
promoting the democratization process in Malaysia, instead it provides the platform for various
parties to express their dissatisfaction, dissent comments and using improper language in the
blog.
Based from the discussion carried out it was discovered that the government had either
directly or indirectly controlled the local media but the irony was that they did not see the
development and the craze of the blog which could also be used by them. As stated by the former
Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Musa Hitam:
Internet has been ignored by politician besides it has
become an important instrument for critics and other non
governmental organisation (NGO) to influence and to
disorientate the public opinion. This medium becomes very
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