Political communication and election campaigning on Instagram during the 14th Malaysian General Election

Researching Instagram as a tool in political communication is a relatively new phenomenon since the platform only began to operate in 2010. However due to its increasing popularity, it is definitely time for more studies to be conducted. World leaders are becoming very prominent on Instagram. They are sharing both personal and political contents and are challenging the usually formal and beurecratic nature of political communication. Therefore this study attempts to explore how Instagram affects political communication by focusing on how several Malaysian politicians used Instagram as part of their communication and campaign during the 14th general election that was held on May 8th , 2018. Coding analysis was done on the Instagram posts of 8 prominent Malaysian politicians. The results showed that these politicians were very active on Instagram and have extensively used Instagram to campaign during the election thus verifying that Instagram is indeed a vital medium for political communication.***************************************************************************************************************************************** Kajian Instagram sebagai alat komunikasi politik adalah fenomena yang agak baru kerana platform media sosail ini baru mula beroperasi pada tahun 2010. Namun, kerana populariti penggunaannya yang semakin meningkat dalam kalangan ahli politik, telah menjadi faktor kajian-kajian politik menggunakan media sosial ini giat dijalankan. Ramai pemimpin dunia telah menjadi sangat terkenal di Instagram. Mereka berkongsi kandungan aktiviti peribadi dan politik. Ini merupakan suatu norma baharu dalam komunikasi politik biasa yang bersifat formal dan birokratik. Oleh itu kajian ini cuba meneroka bagaimana Instagram mempengaruhi komunikasi politik di Malaysia. Tinjauan memfokuskan bagaimana beberapa ahli politik menggunakan Instagram untuk berkomunikasi dan berkempen semasa pilihan raya umum Malaysia ke-14 yang diadakan pada 8 Mei 2018. Analisis pengekodan dilakukan pada posting Instagram 8 ahli politik terkemuka di Malaysia. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa ahli politik ini sangat aktif di Instagram menggunakan media sosial ini untuk berkempen semasa pilihan raya. Kajian ini turut mengesahkan bahawa Instagram sememangnya merupakan media sosial yang penting dalam komunikasi politik

42, belum terlambat untuk berubah

Minta maaf kepada semua pengikut Kelab 40 kerana pada minggu lalu, saya tidak dapat bersiaran seperti biasa. Ini amat mengecewakan saya sendiri sebenarnya

Malays online news and public opinion: a study of issues during the Semenyih by-election

Media can play an important role in the public's voting decision. Despite that, it is unknown whether the issues highlight by media agenda counterpart the issues of the public. Semenyih by-elections resulted in a second victory for Barisan Nasional. The factor that made the election a very interesting one was that the new government which was covered by various issues such as the recent loss of Cameron Highlands, the effectiveness of the new government's Pakatan Harapan (PH) and the strength of Barisan Nasional-PAS cooperation gave a big challenge to PH government to face in the Semenyih by-election. The majority of the voters are Malays, thus this will determine the strength of support in Malay society after GE14. In Malaysia, Facebook is the most popular social media that been used in political communication. This paper investigates whether news online such as Facebook set the agenda for its readers. In response to the importance of social networking sites as sources of information, news media organizations have set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links to articles. This allows for a wider news reach as well as audience participation. When audience members read and subsequently comment on news articles on Facebook, it becomes possible to identify public opinions and sentiments on the issues being covered. Content analysis was used to analyse 398 issues that been highlighted by two Malays online news facebook page namely Malaysiakini BM and Sinar Harian during Semenyih by-election. Moreover, a total of 691 public responds from the issues been sampled to investigate whether user comments mirror the issues and sentiments presented in the news articles. The findings showed that news sentiments and audience sentiments did not necessarily have a clear relationship