Nur Fatin Binti Zaini GFPA1013

204953 Introduction to Political Science

Old media has conquered our world for many years and most of us have been used to old media. Since our childhood we watch television, read newspaper and magazine. All information is able through those media and we used to believe them mostly. Politicians are also taking advantages by using old media to manipulate issues or situation. For example, politicians, by their sense create an issue full with sensation to move our attention from an issue or incident into something new created themselves. Other than that, most of the media is being manipulated by political issue and this political agenda has made citizens especially teenagers bored. Today, as the technology changes, people are more comfortable to use the new technology to get information. For them, the information is much more transparent and reliable. Most of us today, aged from 8 to 50 years old have at least one social media account. Maybe it is not happened in Malaysia, but it does happen in developed countries such as United State of America and United Kingdom. This is because they are much more advance in using technology compared to Malaysia. What is new media really is? New media is any application that offers us interactivity in using the medium. It is digital device based application and requires only several steps to create it. A person may have several accounts of new media as long they have different user name and E-mail account. New media can be used for many reasons as for example to do online business, to make online storage as backup, to socialize, and a medium to express their idea and thoughts. Lev Manovic (2011) in his book, he defines the new media by several concise propositions. One of the definition of new media is; new media versus cyberculture. As stated in his writing, new media is more towards the cultural objects but cyberculture is the phenomenon that have link with the internet and network such as the blogs and multi-player gaming.
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The trend or culture of new media grows really fast and it clinches our attention because it is easy to access. Through several steps and verification we already have an account of social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Through Internet, especially via new media, there are so many imposters that want to manipulate the situation or these
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Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2001)

Nur Fatin Binti Zaini GFPA1013

204953 Introduction to Political Science

teenagers mind. Those who experts on Internet can easily manipulate the Internet Protocol for their own interest so that nobody can track him. This proves that the knowledge on Internet can give a good and bad effect to society. It can make us unite through social media and it also may contribute to cyber-crime. The bad effect does not only focus on our private life, but also effects political world. There are so many political based new media on the internet. A person just has to type a keyword to have important information or to get political news on the Internet. In Malaysia, we just need to type a political partys name and there will be appeared news on our monitor. Not only news about the political party, but also about the actor or politicians will be uploaded or posted on the web. Sometimes different web or blog have the same issue and the issue spread over the whole world via internet. This is one of the greatest impact of internet in our life. An individual can simply express their own opinion towards an issue and they do never think what will happened if they posts harmful statement on the internet, especially on the new media. The question now is whether new media can effects world political environment? Most of the new media viewers are teenagers. They have big excitement towards political news and easily influenced by new news. When a person less knowledge but exposed to false element or sources, automatically that person will make judgments based on limit information or knowledge. People with more information or knowledge will be able to think rationale and make judgment based on facts and true information. The issue arises now is teenagers are too enthusiastic with new media and politics. We know that young generation will take over the government in future and we are also be reminded that they are the largest group involves and exposed to new media. Their decision and thinking about politics has been affected by new media and this is something that is something bad if the government did not care and let opposition conquer new generations mind. Let us look at our country phenomenon. We practice freedom in media. Even our prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib bin Tunku Abdul Rahman promises to our media practitioner to give them more freedom in their job. On the Internet, there are so many

Nur Fatin Binti Zaini GFPA1013

204953 Introduction to Political Science

webs or blogs telling us about politics such as MalaysiaKini. Recently, on the day where Bersih 3.0 demonstration happen, the web updates all the chronology in a second and people from all the world are well informed about it. This weblog tells about all the positive things that happen in the demonstration and people from all around the world can access into it. The impact is; Bersih 3.0 an issue created by the opposition received good feedback from foreign countries. New media can also sell fake information and does not respect other countrys sovereignty. For example, the New York Times in its online version informed the whole world about the political dispute that happened in Malaysia. They also did not use the right calling name. For example, they just call Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as Mr. Anwar which has degrade his honor given to him, and they also did not call our Prime Minister as Datuk Sri Najib but only as Najib Razak. In Malaysia, during the last session of 12th general election, Malaysian has already influenced by the new media in making decision. This situation or scenario does not only happen in Malaysia, but it also happens at other countries such as South Korea and also the United State of America. As in YouTube, the top rated video is revering democratic candidate. A music video titled I Got Crushed on Obama shows that Obama have fans or someone that admire him and it is also effects politicians life.
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In America, Sarah Pallin an American politician once post a status in her Facebook account about a death penalty and it spread all over the world. Sarah Pallin forced to Asks for forgiveness, but it is only a suggestion from her. Yet everyone wants to blame her and takes it serious. In South Korea, the recent election has been effected by new media and there are many politicians have been using this medium to get citizens attention. At first they had expected that the opposition will win the election and the government had taken action to use new media to get back people attention. As we know, media have power and people
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http://www.nytimes.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0856GO4t118

Nur Fatin Binti Zaini GFPA1013

204953 Introduction to Political Science

will become a toy or slave to new media. As for example, there are politicians in South Korea whom willing to give money to a new media practitioner (professional blogger) to get at least 100 000 followers for his WebBlog. This shows a great influence of new media and this power of new media should be controlled by an entity which has no relation with government or the opposition. But in reality there is no such thing as independent organization because every organization will have their own mission and will do just anything to make their goal a success. Not only South Korea, but there are many more countries that will have election in this year. United State of America and French have now receive feedbacks from new media that have bequests world attention. New media have becoming more important than newspaper . This is true as more and more people search information via internet compare to printed version because it is more convenient to search through the Internet. When they want to find a keyword, they can search it simply by using keyboard Shortcut; F3 or Ctrl+F. This application provided make younger generation happy and excited to used it because it is faster and if they want to keep the information, they can simply save the page or print it out as a backup copy. The new media can change the world political environment because people can easily choose the news they want. This means that if you support opposition, you may choose only to read good issues about the opposition and try to find bad topic related to the government. No matter what, the power is in our hand and we can also create our own story about something. In Malaysia, even the government had promised not to filter Internet content, but still you may have limited freedom to deliver news and your blog or web may be banned or blocked. We have acts that can take action to the illegals wrong doers, but it does not enough because the Internet coverage is too huge. If our citizen is in Finland, and he said something that can harm Malaysia or its citizen, or the leaders, there will be no legal action that can be taken because he is out of our frame of legal law. But in certain countries such as Iceland, Denmark and Finland, they do practice media freedom exclusively where nobody can ban or take legal action to them regarding the usage of Internet include the new media. The effect on politics is when we cannot control
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http://www.america.gov

Nur Fatin Binti Zaini GFPA1013

204953 Introduction to Political Science

the usage of new media, our superiority will be condensed. As we know, to be a successful leader we must have the power to control and when we have cannot control the new media, it is a bad situation because new media is a huge phenomenon for todays era. Other than that, new media allows us to share many things. Not only the news from online news, they also share much information from everywhere in the new media. It is easier when we just have to click on the share button or copy and paste the information in our own social media account. The bad site is the issue is not yet being filtered by the individual involved, but it is already shared throughout the world. For example, the story about Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor and her RM24.4 million diamond ring has been spread widely via the new media in a minute. Our government just can explain but they cannot stop the news from spreading around the world. This is because there are so many sources telling the world about the same story and there are so many people share the story via their social media account. The political world can also be change as simple as people click on the like button. This application has been widely applied in the new media as they are interactive. When people click on the like button, it means that they like certain statement or want it not just being said, but to be implement. Other than that, politicians will have instant read on what people like on and this represent the public opinion on what they had been thinking of. Besides that, politicians also can take this opportunity to connect with others, delivering their thought and opinion to the publics and get instant responds from them will make it faster to know whether people would love what he going to do or not. It means that new media does not only bring bad effect to the political world but also good effects to the world as long as they know how to use new media and do not let the new media control them.

Nur Fatin Binti Zaini GFPA1013

204953 Introduction to Political Science

REFERENCES Manovich, l. (2001), The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.