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Perception management is here to stay, politicians from both the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat tell SANTHA OORJITHAM. The response, they claim, should not be more control but more freedom of speech By : SANTHA OORJITHAM, NEW STRAITS TIMES
THE photograph of a man allegedly killed during the Nov 25 Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) rally, posted on the Police Watch Malaysia website (a fabrication which was later retracted).
Text messages during the campaign for the March 8 general election claiming that Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein had said he did not need non-Malay votes.
Such images and messages carried by the "new media", whether true or false, influenced voters in the run-up to the 12th general election.
And although this kind of "perception management" and manipulation of information did not play a significant role in the 2004 polls, the Barisan Nasional (BN) has paid the price since then for discounting its importance.
"Rumours or accusations that surfaced were not addressed with good counter arguments backed with credible data and sources," says Fui K. Soong, chief executive officer of MCA's Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research.
"They were just brushed aside and left to fester in people's minds, fuelling endless speculation."
During the run-up to the polls, "those in urban constituencies accessed the Internet themselves," reports an Umno member, "while those in rural areas got relatively the same information, printed as pamphlets. Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and Pas machinery handed out flyers to coffee shops and houses and followed up on the content at their ceramah".
The BN campaigners focused on the coalition's manifesto and the "big issues" at ceramah, he says. "People asked our ceramah teams and speakers whether the new media allegations were true. The standard answer was that we would not address them and would not respond to personal attacks."
Yet a significant number of voters had turned to the new media during the campaign. In a post-election survey of 1,024 respondents, Merdeka Center found that 12.9 per cent of them got information on the polls from the Internet, blogs and email. Thirty-nine per cent of them regarded election coverage by newspapers as untrustworthy while 37 per cent felt the same way about TV coverage.
A similar survey of 1,654 by the International Islamic University of Malaysia's Election Studies Unit found that respondents turned to the Internet for "a lot" of their information on current issues (64 per cent of respondents), politics (42 per cent) and the elections (43 per cent).
As for text messages, 76 per cent received SMSes on current affairs during the campaign while 63 per cent sent such messages out. The unit monitored 550 blogsites during the campaign, many of which had sprung up just before the elections.
"Seven out of every 10 of them were negative about the BN," reports unit head Datuk Syed Arabi Idid, who is also a professor in the department of communication.
Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek admits that the BN "did not go into the terrain of the new media" during the campaign. "We thought we had 51 per cent of the audience and that the new media had 15 to 20 per cent, but that 15 to 20 per cent made a lot of difference."
There does not appear to be organised perception management in the country, says Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar. "What we have seen are all random individual acts."
The police have set up a unit to monitor the Internet "so that the public would not be exposed to disinformation, false and malicious information as well as Internet scams posted for the purpose of cheating the public or to commit fraud and other crimes", he adds, noting that police in other countries had set up similar units.
Why does perception management work? Both BN and Pakatan Rakyat politicians trace the trend back to 1998, when then prime minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad sacked his deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
"Traditional media lost their credibility then and never fully recovered it," says a BN election strategist. "This created room for the non-traditional media to erode people's confidence and trust in the government and the judiciary."
He estimates that perception management has been in use for the past couple of years: "It's not organised in the traditional sense but there seems to be a meeting of minds that they should exploit the new media fully. It's like the al-Qaeda network -- not centralised but pretty effective."
"Propaganda combines truth with something else," explains the information minister. "That's what the 'cooking' is about, adding in spices." With Hindraf, he points out, "People believed all the Hindraf claims were genuine."
PKR vice-president and Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah estimates that almost all of the Indians at the first Hindraf rally and during the election campaign "were not interested in the sensational stuff such as the allegation of genocide. But the rest of what the Hindraf leaders said was real for them -- about Indians having difficulty getting scholarships, licences, permits and loans".
And the new media played a role, he recalls, posting an image of a council officer preparing to throw a rock at demonstrators, for example.
In a pre-election survey of 1,024 respondents (Feb 24-27) by Merdeka Center, one per cent of all the respondents and three per cent of the Indians said that Hindraf was "the most important problem in the country today". Many (eight per cent overall but 21 per cent among Indians) also mentioned ethnic inequality and lack of economic/job opportunities for their race (two per cent overall but 10 per cent among Indians).
"The allegations in the new media, if repeated enough, might cause some to believe," says the Umno member. "The public do want to see and hear the other side but if they don't hear a response, they assume it's true, especially if enough people repeat the same story."
"If you are the one who is attacked on such a blogsite, how do you deny it?" asks Syed Arabi. "Do you come out with another blogsite or do you write back to the original site?
"Either way, it would be difficult to reach the same audience and it would be a much smaller audience. The government has set up websites to respond to disinformation, but people who read the original blog are unlikely to visit a government blog."
The BN election strategist notes that Hishammuddin did deny the SMS allegation that he did not need non-Malay votes, "but the damage had been done and the SMSes were more widespread than newspaper reports of his denial".
Government departments are not ready to cope with disinformation, he reckons. "The agencies are not talking to each other and work in individual silos. Nobody is in charge of the Net. They are using old instruments to deal with a new situation. The Printing Presses and Publications Act is not adequate."
But the answer lies in free speech and a free media rather than tightening existing laws, argue the legislators. PKR's Sivarasa, who is also a lawyer and human rights activist, says the Printing Presses and Publications Act and Official Secrets Act (OSA) should be removed and suggests creating an offence of inciting racial or religious violence (rather than hatred) under the Penal Code, instead of having the Sedition Act.
Media could be regulated through a Press Council, he adds. "The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) could be given the power to require immediate right of reply -- perhaps prominently and several times -- for any person or institution about whom accusations have been made in the new media."
If the new media do not provide that right of reply, the website could be shut down. "And if the owner defiantly sets up another website, that could be legislated as a crime -- for breaching a regulatory order -- for which they could be arrested."
People or institutions that are the subject of anonymous attacks should report to the police if it is a criminal act, says the Deputy IGP. The police will investigate and the public prosecutor will charge the perpetrators if there is sufficient evidence.
If the acts involve "improper use of the Internet", he adds, investigations can also be conducted under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 -- which provides the power to require the Internet service provider to take action, including blocking access to the site.
"Internet penetration now is 14 million and growing," says the minister of information. "The good and the bad will flow together direct to your house. It is not possible for the government to regulate, but we will educate people and we will come to the stage of reviewing controls on the traditional media."
Both the Printing Presses and Publications Act and the OSA should be reviewed, he agrees. "But any change towards a more progressive society has to be done gradually as everybody adjusts to it."
Until then, he says, "those defamed on the new media have the right to sue and the new media have the right to defend themselves".
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It is not Hishamuddin lah... But it is Ali Rustam who has said that. He has said that to insult PPP during PPP convention and doing so in a capacity of a guest of honour. If I am Kayveas, I would have pull out from BN there and then. There can't be any much worst insult than the one uttered by Ali Rustam.