Blogging Malaysia

The Malaysian blogosphere has never been as hot a topic as it is this year

If your impression of Malaysian blogs is that they are filled with seditious and malicious lies, with every typed line threatening to topple the government in a flash... whoa, hold it for just for a minute there. Put down that newspaper in your hands and read the rest of this article.

First, some introductory notes. A blog (short for 'web log') is a website where the author of the blogs (termed 'bloggers') write and publish posts about anything he or she so desires. The most common category of blogs are personal blogs, where the blogger would chronicle his or her daily life for the whole world to read. The more popular ones however, are mostly socio-political blogs, containing perspectives and opinions varied from those of the mainstream media. If that is not your cup of tea, feel free to choose from the millions of blogs filled with news, thoughts, debates and arguments on a variety of subjects, such as sports, tech gadgets, movies, music, cars, entertainment gossip and so on.

What is the appeal behind blogs? After all, there is a readily-available range of printed material, ranging from daily newspapers to monthly magazines. Even some churches have regular newsletters, so it is safe to claim that the regular Joe need not look far for information and updates on subjects that interest him.

Nevertheless space on printed publications is sorely limited. There is also a lack of resources to archive past printed material, driving Mr. Joe to dutifully subscribe to assorted publications of his choice so he would not miss out. However on the Net, it is almost too easy for Mr. Joe to locate information pertaining to his interests. All he needs to do is to type certain keywords onto a search engine such as Google, and voila! It would present a whole list of related web links for his picking. To say that searching for information, past and current has been revolutionised by the Internet is an understatement

There are other factors pushing blogs to the front-line. Around the world, there is an increasing distrust against traditional media outlets, propelled by knowledge (founded or otherwise) that certain printed publications are under the control of governments, or media moguls with vested interest in certain subjects or industries. Hence when it comes to blogs and citizen-publishing, the number of gatekeepers is hugely lessened, filling a social movement propelled by unaddressed needs. The situation is no different in Malaysia. Local blogs are gaining attention from both the government and international media; the more popular blogs are those that focus on the local political scene. Malaysian bloggers also received more than their fair share of controversies, the most recent ones are two bloggers being hauled up by the authorities in relation to their blogs. More on this later.