The early days of public relations in British Malaya: winning the hearts and minds of the Empire

This article traces the early form of public information services during the colonial period to provide new insights into the historical development of Malaysia’s public relations. The first formal information agency created in 1910 was based in London to promote the early practices of public relations for British Malaya and its interests in Britain. British consolidation during the years of economic boom and depression, until the achievement of Malaysian Independence, was aided by the early information services. The article makes an alternative argument about the beginnings of Malaysian public relations based on colonial economic and political interest as against other previously held view

Barisan Nasional's GE14 campaign materials: a reversed third-person effect

The third-person effect theory postulates that respondents would deny media’s direct effect on themselves but would perceive the same media as having a greater effect on others. A “reverse” third-person effect happens when the intended influence is perceived to be desirable or intelligent on oneself. This perception is sometimes referred to as the “first-person” effect claiming that people perceive greater communication influence on themselves than on others. The third-person effect has been studied on cross sections of populations but it is not clear what the effects would be if examined on a longitudinal basis. Applying this paradigm to the Malaysian voter scenario in the 2013 general elections, Idid and Souket (2014) studied the influence of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) political campaign literature on BN voters under two categories- “self” which included themselves, their family, and like party supporters and “others” that included opposition supporters and undecided voters. The study found that BN supporters displayed a positive confidence on the influence of BN’s campaign materials on self (88%) and on others (77%). Hence, a reversed thirdperson effect, that is, a first-person effect was observed for the perceived level of influence of BN’s political communication materials on BN voters. This finding was attributed to the confidence and positive sentiment of BN voters towards their own party communication materials, finding the materials desirable and favourable. The present study investigated the effect of BN’s political campaign literature on BN voters and opposition voters in the recent 2018 general election. The findings of Idid and Souket (2014) study on the 2013 election were then compared to the current study. The study posits that voter confidence is an important factor in predicting voter influence and perceived effect on others that may result in a third-person effect or a reversed third-person effect given two different contextual situations. This longitudinal study addresses the issue of the third person effect during the periods when BN was strong (2013) and when it lost its dominant position in Malaysian politics (2018)

The daily Covid-19 information from the public's lens

COVID-19 pandemic has imposed an unprecedented impact on people around the globe and Malaysia is no exception.The battle to fight the unseen virus came along with infodemic: a massive amount of information that includes a mixture of true and false narratives that makes intervention efforts even more complicated. The role of the Ministry of Health (MoH) has been instrumental in managing the pandemic and infodemic in Malaysia. The MoH has never failed to update the public and the media through press conferences and press statements since the first few cases of COVID-19 were reported in early January 2020. Daily statistics of COVID-19 cases have been uploaded in MoH’s website and social media platforms. In a recent development, details of COVID-19 cases are now reported in a new website known as CovidNow. This research argues that living with a fatal pathogen such as SARS-CoV-2 requires every person to have access to trustworthy information. Furthermore, understanding of the information is fundamental as it empowers the public to make informed decisions to save lives. This study argues that effective public communication of science related information such as COVID-19 is essential to contain transmission of the disease particularly when the country is preparing to enter the endemic stage. However, the publics’ ability to interpret scientific information has not received adequate attention in the literature. This study explores whether the information shared by the Ministry of Health (MoH) were perceived to be reliable, trustworthy and subsequently improved the publics’ practices in terms of adhering to the standard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent COVID-19. More than 1000 responses were received from a survey that was conducted online. The study found that information about COVID-19 was mainly obtained through MySejahtera apps and WhatsApp. Generally, the publics’ perception of the daily update of COVID-19 has been very positive. The information shared by the MoH was perceived useful, clear, reliable and trustworthy by the publics and subsequently resulted in high compliance among the publics towards the SOPs

Kajang by-election: a study of voter behaviour

This paper evaluates the Kajang by-election held in 2014 from the perspective of the third person effect. The state seat of Kajang was considered important given the poor results obtained by the ruling party, Barisan Nasional, then, a party that lost for the second successive time its two-third parliamentary strength. The Kajang by-election was held where PKR president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was challenged by Chew Mei Fun, a Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) vice president, representing the BN. This by-election was significant as it was held after the recent general elections and was a good ground to test the voter’s state of mind and perception towards the ruling party. The Kajang by-election resulted in PKR (People's Justice Party) winning with a victory margin of 19% garnering a greater Malay support. This study was conducted to test the impact of the political campaign messages on the voters. Voter perception was studied and analyzed from phase one that was done from 1 to 8 March and phase two that was done from 29 to 31 March. Based on the analysis of survey responses from the sample (phase one, n = 589 and phase two, n = 619), we found not much differences in the voter behaviour between phase one and phase two, thus confirming their choice of party. Comparisons on the voter behaviour in both phases were made in the context of gender, race, age, education level and income. The survey study also retrospectively tested for the presence of a third-person effect, aiming to investigate the perceived self-other discrepancy with regard to how the political campaign messages influenced voters’ choice of party. Results indicated a reverse third person effect on the recipients of favourable party messages thus affecting their decision making

The daily covid-19 information from the publics’ lens

COVID-19 pandemic has imposed an unprecedented impact to people around the globe and Malaysia is not excluded. The cumulative cases of COVID-19 in the country as of September 16, 2021 has exceeded two million with more than 20,000 fatalities. The battle to fight the unseen virus came along with infodemic; a massive amount of information that include a mixture of true and false narratives that make intervention efforts to be even more complicated. The role of the Ministry of Health (MoH) has been instrumental in managing the pandemic and infodemic in Malaysia. The ministry has laid down all preventive measures including a total lockdown to contain the virus. The Director General of Health (DG), has never failed to update the public and the media through press conferences and press statements since the first few cases of COVID-19 were reported in the early of January 2020. Daily statistics of COVID-19 cases are also uploaded in MoH’s website and social media platforms. In recent development, detailed of COVID-19 cases is now reported in a new website known as CovidNow. This research is developed based on an ideal yet very important premise. Living with a fatal pathogen such as SARS-CoV-2 requires every person to have access to trustworthy information about the disease and able interpret the information accurately leading to the right action to mitigate risk. However, the publics’ ability to interpret scientific information such as COVID- 19 did not receive adequate attention. It is worth noted that publics’ interpretation of COVID-19 is not free from biases thus, a sound scientific literacy is fundamental. This study aims to explore on publics’ perception of the daily COVID-19 update. It will examine whether the information shared by MoH was comprehensible, perceived useful and improve the publics’ scientific literacy about the disease. This study argues that a sound scientific literacy will enable the publics to question, investigate and draw evidence-based conclusion about COVID-19 and subsequently empower them to protect themselves and others. This study will initiate an online survey nationwide to obtain data from the public. Findings of this research will assist policy makers and public health officials to improve their communication strategies in their attempts to educate and empower the publics to take the right action during a severe public health crisis. COVID-19 will soon become an endemic that requires everyone to remain vigilant to protect themselves and their loved ones. As the virus will continue to stay, public’s awareness, understanding and scientific literacy about the disease ought to be enhanced. At this stage, scientific literacy is no longer ideal but a critical goal to achieve to continue with life

Three public relations practitioners in British Malaya

The writing of history on the development of public relations has been attributed to specific personalities or events of particular countries that have been made universal and hence ignorant of the position in most of the other countries like Malaysia. The PR history in the US identifies specific personalities like Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays and Arthur Page, while the PR history in the UK talks of two personalities for their influence on public relations- John Grierson (for British documentary) and Stephen Tallents (for publicity and propaganda works). This paper makes a presentation on three early public relations practitioners during British Malaya. The first practitioner was Sir William Taylor who held the post of Agent for the Malay States Information Agency from 1910 to 1920. The second practitioner was George Lamb Peet, who was the Director of the Department of Information from 1939 to 1940. The third was Mervyn Sheppard (aka Mubin Sheppard) who held the post of the Director of the first Department of Public Relations, from 1946 to 1948. The three personalities were chosen for the different political colonial era they served during British Malaya. William Taylor, former Resident General of British Malaya, served the office as Agent in London, while Peet, a former veteran journalist with the Straits Times served his time operating from Singapore. Mubin Sheppard, former District Officer, was operating from his office in Kuala Lumpur. The current study focuses on their contributions and their strategic, big ideas that paved way for the development of the Public Relations Department and later the Department of Information in Malaysia

Perceived influence of opposition political campaign materials on voters

This article focuses on how political attitudes of voters are shaped and affected during election campaigns.The study is constructed on the third person effect paradigm that posits that negative messages will have a greater impact not on ‘me’ or ‘you’ but on ‘them’.Concurrently, perceived positive messages will have a greater influence on themselves compared to others, often referred to as the first-person effect or reversethird person effect (Duck, Terry & Hogg, 1995; Perloff 1999).The present study was undertaken to understand how political communication messages can have a positive effect on own party supporters while the same message can be perceived to be biased and partisan to opposing party supporters.The current study is grounded on the research done by Idid & Souket (2014) that investigated the effects of Malaysia’s largest political party, Barisan Nasional (BN) political communication literature on two Malaysian voter groups (BN voters and opposition voters), one of which regarded the message as partisan and the other as congenial.The present study attempts to investigate the effects of each of the opposition party political communication literature on two Malaysian voter groups (BN party supporters and the particular opposition party supporter)

Political efficacy among Malaysian voters: the role of traditional and new media

The technological advancement and political situations have dramatically impacted the way traditional and new media have played their role in society, especially in the political development of the country. The news on current affairs, politics and other social and economic aspects is made available to audience from many different media sources. Since scholars studied media, news media credibility has been a major concern to understand audience perceptions and attitudes towards the media and its role in politics. But little investigation has been conducted on news credibility as perceived by audience members. It is argued that trust in the media leads to trust in the political system and media would do well to instill confidence in the political efficacy among voters.. Scholars argue that media create agreement or disagreement among the audiences towards the political system. This study investigated media credibility among Malaysian voters by examining specifically the extent the voters trusted the traditional and new media. This study also examined how traditional and new media use and trust in the media explained the perceived political efficacy among the voters. Data were collected by administering the questionnaire on voters nationwide to understand their appreciation of media credibility and its contribution toward the political efficacy. The 2030 respondents were selected through quota-sampling from two parliamentary constituencies in each state. The data, collected in July 2012, were analyzed using SPSS version 17 for both descriptive and inferential statistics to answer the research objectives and test its hypotheses. The study found that voters perceived the media as credible, with highest trust seen among television users, followed by users of newspapers and radio. Internet was found to be the least credible. The results of hierarchical regression suggested that traditional and new media use (first block) explained 4%, 2%, & 2% of variance in internal political efficacy, external political efficacy, and voter efficacy respectively. The second block of trust variables (personal trust in media, media system trust, and trust in political reporting) explained 15%, 17% & 17% of variance in political efficacy dimensions respectively. In the analysis, internet use was significantly correlated with voter efficacy. Voters are still depending on traditional media rather than on the new media for political efficacy. Implications and recommendations are further discussed

Effects of Political Campaign Materials on Party and Non-Party Voting Supporters

Political parties would normally claim that their campaign and communication materials have effects on voters, be it on their supporters or their opponents during election campaigns. However, such effects are assumed effects by the parties unless voters are themselves assessed about the effects of such materials on themselves. The supporters of the parties are likely to regard such campaign materials as congenial to them but this may not be so with the opposition supporters who would regard such materials as negative. Taking the third-person effect to analyze effects on the audience as the theoretical framework, this study posited that opposition members would regard the materials as negative and thus would claim that they would not have any effect on them but they would likely say that such campaign materials would have effects on own party supporters. Davison (1983) posited that individuals will perceive that negative mediated messages would have their greatest impact not "on me" or "you" but on "them,"- the third person. Research suggests that people judge others to be more influenced than they are by media, advertising, libelous messages, media violence, pornography, and television drama. The theory referred to as the Third-person effect developed on the postulation that audience members would not admit that media had any direct effect on them, but would instead believe that the media influenced others, the third person (Tewksbury, Moy, & Weis, 2004; Price, Tewksbury, & Huang, 1998). On the other hand, while people would discount the effects of negative or biased messages on themselves, they would, under the notion of the First Person Effect, readily admit to being influenced by such messages. This study was based on studying the effects of political literature on party and opposition party supporters taking the messages to be positive to one group and biased and partisan to another group. The study focuses on the assumed effects of political literature on own party and opposition party supporters. It traces the degree of influence of Malaysia's largest political party, Barisan Nasional (BN) political communication literature on its own supporters and on non-BN party supporters. While the third-person effect assumes a null or minimal effect on one's self and some or strong effect on others, the question that arises are on welcoming favorable media effects on oneself and assuming unfavorable effects on others

The emergence of government information services in British Malaya: Exploring the antecedent growth of public relations in Malaysia

This article covers the emergence of the first form of Governmental information services in Malaysia. The article gives an account of the importance of the information services in the historical development of the Malaysian Public Relations. The objective of this paper is to look into the origin of the first formal Information Agency in British Malaya and to evaluate how the early information services aided the British economic consolidation during the economic boom and the economic depression years in British Malaya (1910 -1934). The early colonial information services has always been linked to the prolific use of propaganda especially during World War 1 and World War 2 (Idid, 1995). Most often these services were in the form of propaganda agencies under the controlling governments and were often labelled as ‘information’ offices or committees. Some of the common examples include- the office of war information (OWI: 1942-1945), the committee on public information (1917-1919) and the Ministry of Information formed in 1939 that was the central government department responsible for publicity and propaganda in the Second World War. According to Anderson (1989) many of the early information offices that were run by the local governments have been the forerunners of the PR sector in the UK. The current paper attempts to trace the history of the information offices in Malaysia and explores its evolution as a precursor to the PR sector in Malaysia