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Monday, August 8, 2011

‘No basis to blame online media readers’

There is a difference of opinion on whether online media readers are a telling force in dominating public opinion.

PETALING JAYA: The government’s tight rein over the traditional media has been a boon for online media and a local university lecturer has claimed online readers are accepting the news as the gospel truth.

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak senior lecturer Jeniri Amir in a Bernama report yesterday said this has led the online media to dominate public opinion.

Jeniri said this development has raised an alarm because the trend was for some of the young Internet users to just blindly accept and believe what they read online, thus making it difficult to put forward a rational and civilised debate.

But Universiti Malaya law professor and media columnist Azmi Sharom begs to differ.

“It is harder for the government to hide things with the emergence of the new media,” he told FMT.

He referred to the political events in the country in 1987 to back his point. Azmi said when Operasi Lalang took place that year, the public was in the dark as it was very difficult to obtain information.

“Independent news portals have some degree of reliability,” he added. He also dismissed the Bernama report as naive, unfounded and oversimplified.

“There is no empirical study conducted through a survey with sound methodology,” said Azmi.

He also took the print media to task.

“I can also say that Utusan Malaysia readers accept Utusan Malaysia reports as the gospel truth but where is the evidence?” he asked.

He blamed the government for the public mistrust against traditional print media.

“It is a question of trust and people know that the print media is controlled. The government has no one but itself to blame,” said Azmi.

Another academic, mass communications professor in Universiti Malaya Azizah Hamzah, also disagreed that the online media created public opinion.

“The broadcast media is the most powerful,” she said.

The online media readers, she said, are very urban and are of the higher income group.

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