Mass Media and Its Influence on Individuals' Voting Decisions

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Introduction Malaysia recently underwent its 13th General Election since achieving Independence a little over 56 years ago. This election that was held on the 5th of May of this year broke a record when it managed to accomplish the highest percentage of voters’ turnout at 85%. From the 13.26 million of registered voters for the 222 Parliamentary seats, 11.25 millions of voters turn up to cast their votes; meanwhile for State Legislative Assemblies, a whooping amount of 9.74 millions of citizens voted from the 11.35 millions registered voters. According to the Election Commission (EC), this was the highest voter turnout for Malaysia among all the general elections that were held to date (Straits Times 2013). And through this election, the incumbent coalition party, Barisan Malaysia (BN), managed to retain their reign over Malaysia once again by attaining 133 seats in the Parliament. With only 46.57% of popular votes, BN goes on to form the government while the opposition party, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) only managed to score 89 parliamentary seats although it fare better in the popular votes by gaining 53.43%. With these results in mind, this assignment will goes on to determine if the mass media content in Malaysia has the ability to influence the voting decision of an individual. Content It isn’t a foreign concept anymore that media plays a huge role in people’s life these days. This is especially true since the world is now dominated by technology and its like. Gone are the days where citizens have little to no access to media, as information in this day and age can be easily obtained through a swipe of the finger or the click of a remote. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that many scholars, politicians, political scientists, journ... ... middle of paper ... ...ation Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, p. 3, viewed 10 November 2013, . Subramaniam, S 2011, ‘Assessing Political Dynamics in Contemporary Malaysia: Implications for Democratic Change’, ASIANetwork Exchange, vol. 19, no. 1, p. 49. Thompson, EC 2013, GE 13 and the politics of urban chauvinism, viewed 9 November 2013, . Weiss, ML 2012, ‘Politics in Cyberspace: New Media in Malaysia’, fesmedia Asia series, viewed 12 November 2013, < http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/09068.pdf> Yeap, SY 2013, ‘Malaysia’s 13th General Election: Rising Citizen Participation’, RSIS Commentaries, p. 2, viewed 12 November 2013,

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