70
Heike Jensen, Jac sm Kee, Gayathry Venkiteswaran, and Sonia Randhawa
generally been theorized. The public sphere has always been created and maintained
by media, from earlier mass media/news media to the more recent Internet. In Malaysia, the fl ow of information, speech, and expression has traditionally been tightly
regulated in multiple ways with respect to the mass media. Regulation has included
a monopoly over institutions of mass media,
23 stringent and punitive licensing administration,
24 numerous laws
25 and reiterative cautions on the possible recurrence of
ethnic confl icts like the one of May 13, 1969.
26 Jointly, these measures have effectively
circumscribed speech perceived as “ sensitive ” and threatening to disrupt social relations. Self-censorship has consequently been widely practiced, from members of the
mass media to the everyday person.
27
Although the development of the Internet in Malaysia was expressly promoted by
the state in the late 1990s to catalyze the nation into fully developed status,
28 it has
simultaneously destabilized governmental control over the fl ow of information and
expression in the public domain. To attract foreign investment in the Multimedia
Super Corridor (MSC) and to mitigate the government ’ s reputation for exercising strict
state control of the information and communications public domain, consultations
were held with several key industry leaders including Microsoft and IBM. Business
here acted as an anticensorship agent, and the MSC Bill of Guarantees that came out
of these consultations included the promise that there would be no censorship of the
Internet.
29 This was supported through Article 3(3) of the Malaysia Communications
and Multimedia Act (MCMA) — the primary piece of legislation that regulates the
Internet — which expressly states that “ nothing in this Act shall be construed as permitting the censorship of the Internet. ”
30
Given this formal guarantee, the Internet became a unique “ public ” space in Malaysia. Although stemming from economic interest, this relative freedom presented
opportunities for civil society to engage in and proliferate the public discourse with
previously prohibited speech and information. Several alternative news sites have
sprung up since the late 1990s to early 2000s, among them Malaysiakini,
31 Malaysia
Today,
32 and more recently, Malaysian Insider
33 and The NutGraph.
34 They are maintained by “ technopreneurs, ” bloggers, and journalists aiming to fi ll the palpable gap
of independent and unbiased information not directed by the ruling political party.
35
New sites also include community sites for people of diverse and marginalized
sexualities.
It may also be noted that as Internet access began to proliferate in Malaysia, not
only men but also a large number of women gained access. From 2000 to 2008, the
percentage of the population with Internet access grew from 15 to nearly 70 percent.
36
Data collection on access to the Internet and infrastructural reach has often not been
gender-disaggregated, but the latest survey conducted in 2008 on household use
37 of
the Internet
38 stated only a slight difference between the percentage of male home
users (51.9 percent) and female home users (48.1 percent).
Heike Jensen, Jac sm Kee, Gayathry Venkiteswaran, and Sonia Randhawa
generally been theorized. The public sphere has always been created and maintained
by media, from earlier mass media/news media to the more recent Internet. In Malaysia, the fl ow of information, speech, and expression has traditionally been tightly
regulated in multiple ways with respect to the mass media. Regulation has included
a monopoly over institutions of mass media,
23 stringent and punitive licensing administration,
24 numerous laws
25 and reiterative cautions on the possible recurrence of
ethnic confl icts like the one of May 13, 1969.
26 Jointly, these measures have effectively
circumscribed speech perceived as “ sensitive ” and threatening to disrupt social relations. Self-censorship has consequently been widely practiced, from members of the
mass media to the everyday person.
27
Although the development of the Internet in Malaysia was expressly promoted by
the state in the late 1990s to catalyze the nation into fully developed status,
28 it has
simultaneously destabilized governmental control over the fl ow of information and
expression in the public domain. To attract foreign investment in the Multimedia
Super Corridor (MSC) and to mitigate the government ’ s reputation for exercising strict
state control of the information and communications public domain, consultations
were held with several key industry leaders including Microsoft and IBM. Business
here acted as an anticensorship agent, and the MSC Bill of Guarantees that came out
of these consultations included the promise that there would be no censorship of the
Internet.
29 This was supported through Article 3(3) of the Malaysia Communications
and Multimedia Act (MCMA) — the primary piece of legislation that regulates the
Internet — which expressly states that “ nothing in this Act shall be construed as permitting the censorship of the Internet. ”
30
Given this formal guarantee, the Internet became a unique “ public ” space in Malaysia. Although stemming from economic interest, this relative freedom presented
opportunities for civil society to engage in and proliferate the public discourse with
previously prohibited speech and information. Several alternative news sites have
sprung up since the late 1990s to early 2000s, among them Malaysiakini,
31 Malaysia
Today,
32 and more recently, Malaysian Insider
33 and The NutGraph.
34 They are maintained by “ technopreneurs, ” bloggers, and journalists aiming to fi ll the palpable gap
of independent and unbiased information not directed by the ruling political party.
35
New sites also include community sites for people of diverse and marginalized
sexualities.
It may also be noted that as Internet access began to proliferate in Malaysia, not
only men but also a large number of women gained access. From 2000 to 2008, the
percentage of the population with Internet access grew from 15 to nearly 70 percent.
36
Data collection on access to the Internet and infrastructural reach has often not been
gender-disaggregated, but the latest survey conducted in 2008 on household use
37 of
the Internet
38 stated only a slight difference between the percentage of male home
users (51.9 percent) and female home users (48.1 percent).