LIVE internet streaming is helping political parties to go beyond the traditional ceramah to reach more people as internet penetration improves.

These days, the audience for a Facebook Live stream can outnumber the turnout at an event.

“The young people just don’t come to ceramah. But it’s not just them. Young and old are tuning into FB Live because you get to watch the event from home and can even interact by posting comments,” said political analyst Hisomuddin Bakar.

Leaders such as Selangor Amanah chief Abbas Azmi is even banking on social media to lead the party to electoral victory.

The wing believes the party as a whole stands a good chance in the 14th general election if it can reach 60% of its targeted voters via either Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

But as parties such as Amanah, PAS and even Umno dedicate more resources to social media campaigns, questions arise as to how effective the tool is at getting votes.

A foreign policy magazine article argued that social media has been great at allowing cash-strapped, smaller political parties and causes to get their message out.

In countries such Malaysia, it allows opposition parties and civil society groups to compete against the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

But author Erica Chenoweth argues that social media may not be fulfilling its promise of levelling the playing field as autocrats and bigger parties co-opt it and use it to suppress dissent.

Online vs offline

Abbas and his team saw the trend of youths switching off politics in person when he campaigned in the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections in Maylast year.

“In a face-to-face survey we did with 300 young people, only one or two wanted to engage with us. The rest did not want to,” Abbas told The Malaysian Insight.

But when they went on social media to find young voters in the constituency, Selangor Amanah Youth discovered that they were ready and willing to share their views.

To date, Amanah Youth’s Facebook page has 12,248 likes and 12,359 followers.

Its rivals PAS Youth and Umno Youth are doing the same.

Helmi Khalid, a Kedah PAS Youth veteran said that social media has displaced the ceramah as the party’s primary means of communication with voters.

Although PAS will continue holding ceramah, such events are less common than 10 years ago, said Helmi, a former aide to the late Kedah menteri besar and PAS commissioner Azizan Abdul Razak.

“Social media is cheaper than ceramah. And we can get our message out a lot more quicker and more frequently. It also enables us to quickly respond to our detractors,” Helmi told The Malaysian Insight.

Although BN controls traditional media outlets such as television, radio and newspapers, it is no slouch in harnessing the power of social media. 

Seemingly proof of Chenoweth’s findings, BN’s social media presence appears to dwarf that of Pakatan Harapan or PAS.

The Friends of Barisan Nasional Facebook page has 2.344 million likes and 2.303 million followers. In comparison, the ‘Pakatan Harapan Supporters” page has 194,377 likes, 191,134 followers.

PAS’s official FB page has 476,641 likes and 473,186 followers.

“Umno Youth has always been focused on both social media and physical programmes,” said Umno Youth social media bureau chief Ibdillah Ishak.

“We need to keep up with the times. As (author) Ray Ponter said, communication methods in social media are more dynamic and responsive than conventional media.”

But the focus on physically meeting the public is still there as shown in Umno Youth’s Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) dialogues, Youth Parliament and BN Youth Volunteers (BNYV), said Ibdillah.

Message over medium

But just like the crowd at a ceramah, the number of followers or likes on an FB page for a political party does not reflect the number of votes it can get.

Politweet, a think tank that specialises in social media analysis, said that “likes” and “followers” are only a reflection of interest. 

“But we don’t know with certainty how much impact it had on votes. To know how effective social media is in getting votes would require phone surveys,” said Ahmed Kamal of Politweet via email.

“Higher social media usage does not translate into ‘more PR-leaning’ or ‘more BN-leaning’. Of course, if people have no interest in a party that is not a good sign, and opposition parties have been lagging behind BN on FB since November 2013.”

Compared with BN, the opposition seems to have more independent followers voluntarily spreading its message, said Ahmed, while BN seems to have organised groups followng a script.

Where social media can help is in the countering of racial or religious-charged propaganda, said Ilham Centre’s Hisomuddin.

BN component Umno has not been averse to using incendiary messages to check the support of Malay Muslims – a  critical voting bloc – for parties such as DAP and PKR.

“With social media, opposition parties can act almost instantaneously to counter racial incitement unlike before when we did not have the internet,” said Hisommuddin.

At the end of the day, social media is only a communications tool that needs to have a convincing and consistent message to convey if it is to be effective.

Although the opposition is good at using social media to criticise the BN, Umno has been equally aggressive in hitting back.

“I’m not taking this challenge (social media warfare) lightly,” said Ibdillah, of Umno Youth.

“We must convince voters to support Barisan Nasional as it has a proven track record… unlike the opposition who have yet to name their prime ministerial candidate.”

The problem with the opposition, said Politweet’s Ahmed, is that while they have been successful at spreading criticism of Prime Minister Najib Razak, they have yet to show that they are a viable
alternative. – August 19, 2017.