Title: Internet Politics and State Media Control: Candidate Weblogs in Malaysia
Abstract: This article underscores the importance of online research in illuminating the social processes underlying Internet effects on politics. It is an empirical study of the effect of blogs on the 2008 general election in Malaysia. Using the population of electoral candidates in the 2008 general election (N = 471), the author estimates a logistic model predicting the effects of having a blog on winning a Parliamentary seat. The results show that opposition candidates benefit significantly more from having a blog than do non-opposition candidates, as blogging provides opportunities denied to them by Malaysia's state-controlled media. Bloggers are more than seven times as likely to win an election compared to non-bloggers, controlling for incumbency, party membership, and race. In addition to being an alternative avenue of information distribution, blogs' potential for building interpersonal relationships and their role as mobilization tools in media-controlling states are discussed using qualitative examples.
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 27
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