Southeast Asian Press Alliance Sharing of Media Monitoring Activities in Malaysia Gayathry Venkiteswaran

Content 1.Brief background of media in Malaysia 2.Examples of media monitoring in Malaysia 3.Monitoring of election reporting –2004, 2008, Topical monitoring – BERSIH rally 2011, Challenges

1. Background: Media in Malaysia 1.Language communities – ethnicised politics 2.Private ownership with political ties – appointments of editor in chief are political 3.State media, no public broadcasting 4.Laws on licensing, criminal defamation, official secrets, sedition, national security 5.Weakened trade union and societies’ laws 6.Public apathy, until…

2. Media Monitoring: Initiatives and focus 1.Academic – content analysis, example trends in coverage of women, trade union, elections, political crises 2.Civil society – National Media Monitoring Survey conducted by the All Women’s Action Society (AWAM)National Media Monitoring Survey 3.Citizen’s monitoring of 2004 general elections on the blog platform (hosted by Charter 2000) 4.CIJ ’s monitoring of election reporting 2008, topical issueselection reporting Poll / survey – demographics and consumption trend, Merdeka Centre and CIJ Merdeka Centre and CIJ 6.Commentaries on specific stories – Hartal MSM, uppercaiseHartal MSMuppercaise

3. Monitoring media reports : Trends Pre-2004 : Academic, post-fact, content analysis, limited dissemination 1999 : independent online news and analysis platforms enter the media market, private TV station actually hosts credible talk shows 2004 : Charter 2000, a citizens’ initiative for free expression, hosts a blog to get people’s observations of media coverage of the elections campaign, voting and results 2008 : CIJ initiates with C2000 and WAMI a monitoring project with volunteers, but with a proposed methodology. Report confirmed the impact of the political control and ownership on the bias in the content, but it also showed the extent of the bias.Reportextent 2008: Survey on public perception of media independence (CIJ/Merdeka Centre) 2009 : Survey on public perception of media role in reporting on corruption (CIJ/Merdeka Centre) 2009 – 2011 : CIJ’s monitoring of coverage on by-elections, water protests, Wikileaks saga, economic transformation program 2011 & 2012 : CIJ’s monitoring of the coverage on the electoral reforms rally (BERSIH)

4. Topical monitoring Public rallies to demand for electoral reforms – BERSIH (Clean) 2011 and 2012 Context: Why is the coverage of a rally important? Who are the sources/actors? How do they frame the protestors? FindingsFindings: 1.Reader would have got inaccurate information about the rallies from the print media 2.But most people relied on the online and social networking sites (there were 263,228 tweets by 39,940 users using the #bersih tag over the period of a month)

Monitoring media reports : Conclusions Political bias exists, but studies show how and to what extent Increasing public discontent over the years, political bias has not reduced Bias replaced by outright lies Lack of professional reporting Raise understanding of the laws, processes through the advocacy People more engaged in discussion on ownership Social networking tools begin to challenge the mainstream media

5. Challenges 1.Coverage of the monitoring – some sectors will always be left out 2.Reliability – scientific data vs observation, margin of error, value to the bias 3.Determining the purpose of the monitoring and how to use the information, follow up

Links Centre for Independent Journalism, Malaysia Merdeka Centre Charter 2000 – Aliran Media Monitoring diary Hartal MSM