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By OON YEOH, THE STAR Access to information comes in many forms and the one in abundance in the by-election was leaflets. It's not as fast as Internet postings but are effective and impactful and can be churned out quite fast.
ONE of the most commonly asked questions I get about New Media is what impact it has on elections. I was asked this question so many times right after the general election in March and again people are asking me that very same question now that the one in Permatang Pauh is over. Well, I was on hand. I always make it a point to be at an important election three days leading into the polls. Those are the three most exciting days of any campaign period. And from what I saw, yes, the Internet and New Media did play a very big role – but in an indirect way. Through what is commonly referred to as secondary access. Primary access refers to direct connection to the Internet – to news sites, to blogs, to YouTube and so on. Secondary access refers to the trickle-down effect of those news items and information found online. Secondary access can come in many forms. One form that I saw in abundance in Permatang Pauh was leaflets. Some were well-designed and properly printed. Others were hastily put together and photocopied. But they were effective. I don’t know what the Internet penetration rate in Permatang Pauh is like but it can’t be high. This is a very rural area with lots of small kampongs and padi fields all around. Leaflets are not as fast as Internet postings but they are effective and impactful. And they were churned out quite fast. When the imam, Ramlang Porigi, decided to reveal that he had been instructed to witness Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan’s act of swearing on the Quran, word spread like wildfire through SMS. And of course the news sites and blogs picked it up. By the next day, copies of his comments were distributed to voters in the area. Anybody who wanted to know what he said could find out, whether they had access to the Internet or not. But it wasn’t just the pro-Pakatan Rakyat people who used leaflets. The pro-Barisan Nasional side did too. I personally witnessed a case where it was used rather mischievously. On Sunday night, after a ceramah, I got news that a group masquerading as DAP supporters had been picked up by the police. So, I headed to the police station and sure enough, there were 11 of them, holding DAP flags, lined up against a wall. They were carrying with them leaflets which featured a prospective Pakatan Cabinet. It was to be led by Anwar but there would be more DAP ministers than PKR or PAS ones! Quite incendiary stuff but I do wonder whether that would fool anyone. Do the perpetrators actually think the villagers are that stupid that they would buy such a canard hook, line and sinker? I think the election results – with Anwar securing an even bigger majority than Wan Azizah did in the general election pretty much confirms that even rural folk are better informed these days. Maybe they got the Pakatan leaflets. Or perhaps they bought one of the many VCDs on sale at the various ceramah venues. Many people tend to forget that VCDs are a form of New Media. And which household these days doesn’t have a VCD player? The range of content available was quite stunning. There were lots of recordings of ceramahs – recent and older ones – and also documentaries and stuff taken off YouTube and so on. And they were sold very cheaply. Each VCD was only RM4 and you could get three for RM10. Then, there’s good old SMS. Unlike in the general election where SMS jokes abound – especially about Samy Vellu – this time around they were mainly used for coordination purposes. I was informed through SMS where certain ceramah were being held and where this person or that person would be holding a press conference. Thank goodness for it, otherwise logistics would have been a nightmare. But the real utility of SMS came to light on election day. After the polls closed, I got non-stop messages from friends, from all over the country, asking me what the margin of victory was (everyone knew Anwar would win, the question was by how much). “Malaysiakini is down, do you know what the majority is?” came one message. “Oon, tell me the good news,” came another. “Is 16K official?” These were the types of messages I got bombarded with all night long. Since Internet access was patchy and I really couldn’t upload the information onto my website, I finally did a mass SMS shot with the unofficial figures which I got from a very reliable source. Secondary access is still the primary means that people get their information on political news but things are changing. By 2012 or 2013, when the next election comes along, I think I would no longer need to send out info via mass SMS. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. Oon Yeoh took lots of pictures in Permatang Pauh. Check them out at www.oonyeoh.com
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