New Media in the Margins: Lived Realities and Experiences from the Malaysian Peripheries

200 Pages·2023·3.227 MB·English

by  Benjamin Yh Loh, James Chin

New Media in the Margins
Lived Realities and Experiences from
the Malaysian Peripheries
Edited by
Benjamin YH Loh · James Chin
New Media in the Margins
·
Benjamin YH Loh James Chin
Editors
New Media
in the Margins
Lived Realities and Experiences
from the Malaysian Peripheries
Editors
Benjamin YH Loh James Chin
School of Media and Communication School of Social Sciences
Taylor’s University University of Tasmania
Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia Sandy Bay, Tasmania, Australia
ISBN 978-981-19-7140-2 ISBN 978-981-19-7141-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7141-9
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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Acknowledgements
This book was first conceptualised in 2020 due to the gap in knowledge
about online spaces in Malaysia, especially those utilised by minority and
marginalised groups. While not entire a major focus of this book, the
study of online spaces became all the more pertinent as many commu-
nities were left behind due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the
shutting down of economic activities in Malaysia. We, the editors, cannot
thank enough everyone involved in this book, especially our contributors,
who took great care in representing these often poorly represented groups
in their respective chapters.
We are also immensely thankful to all the online communities that
have become a part of this book, whose struggles, and challenges we
aimed to highlight with some hope of improving exposure and bringing
about more positive developments for Minorities in the country. It is an
honour to have a role in sharing your stories. More research is needed to
shed the light on many ‘Othered’ communities in Malaysia, and we hope
this volume will lead others to look at these difficult, and often, hidden
communities.
While we were not able to represent all such communities here, this
book could start a conversation through other case studies on similar
issues. The book essentially positions new media as both a tool for the
oppressed and the oppressor and deeper study is sorely needed to make
online spaces an equitable environment for all. We thank you, the reader
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
for taking the time to understand the plight of our subjects and that in
doing so, you also do more to assist them.
We would also like to thank our publisher, Palgrave-Macmillan for
agreeing to publish this book and for recognising that this is an under-
served area. Our utmost thanks go to William Tham for his invaluable
work in putting this book together.
Finally, as editors, our work on this book could not have been possible
without the support of our institutions, our families (Vila, Doria, Cayla,
Christa and Catrina), friends and colleagues, who had to endure listening
to our constant workshopping over the last two years. It is only through
all your love and support that this book is finally ready.
September 2022 Benjamin YH Loh
James Chin
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Benjamin YH Loh and James Chin
Part I Indigenous Rights and Representation
2 Native Customary Rights Land Titles and Thwarting
Deforestation: Digital Acts of Resistance Among
Sarawak’s Indigenous Peoples 17
Nuurrianti Jalli and James Chin
3 Some Orang Asli Still Think Najib Is PM:
Representations and Self-Representations of the Orang
Asli in the Cameron Highlands By-election 39
Benjamin YH Loh and Rusaslina Idrus
Part II Migrant and Refugee Discourses
4 Romance Through Digital Avatars: Online Courtship,
Representation and “Catfishing” Amongst Irregular
Female Migrants in Sabah 67
Vilashini Somiah
5 Grateful Politics: Rohingya and Social Media
in the Time of the Pandemic 91
Nursyazwani and Aslam Abd Jalil
vii
viii CONTENTS
Part III The “Othered” Minorities
6 Confronting Malaysian Indian Stereotypes and State
Neglect: The ‘SuguPavithra’ Episode Within
Mainstream National Discourse 119
Shanthi Thambiah and Benjamin YH Loh
7 ‘Our Online-Ness Matters’: The Construction of Social
Media Presences by Malaysian LGBTQ Communities 141
Collin anak Jerome
8 A ‘Blue Ocean’ for Marginalised Radical Voices:
Cyberspace, Social Media and Extremist Discourse
in Malaysia 163
Ahmad El-Muhammady
Index 193
List of Contributors
Aslam Abd Jalil School of Social Science, The University of Queens-
land, St Lucia, QLD, USA
James Chin School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Tasmania,
Australia
Ahmad El-Muhammady International Islamic University Malaysia
(IIUM), Selangor, Malaysia
Rusaslina Idrus Gender Studies Programme, Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Nuurrianti Jalli Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD, USA
Collin anak Jerome Faculty of Language and Communication, Univer-
siti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Malaysia
Benjamin YH Loh School of Media and Communication, Taylor’s
University, Selangor, Malaysia
Nursyazwani Department of Anthropology, Penn Museum, Philadel-
phia, PA, USA
Vilashini Somiah Gender Studies Programme, Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Shanthi Thambiah Gender Studies Programme, Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
ix
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Illustrating the types of territorial domains 21
Fig. 2.2 A photograph shared on the NCR Land Rights Facebook
group on 18 June 2019 by one of the members. After
a Google reverse image search, we found that the photo
first appeared in the Borneo Post on 21 December 2016,
following the Federal Court’s ruling that NCR land could
not be obtained through the pemakai menoa or pulau
galau systems. In such cases, an inability to prove claims
over their land, therefore, means that it is considered
unoccupied and automatically belongs to the state
(Ngidang 2002) (Source Borneo Post) 24
Fig. 2.3 The total interactions in the NCR Land Rights group
from 1 April 2019 to 1 April 2020. These exceeded
736,000, with 14,000 weekly interactions. There were
about 14,000 total posts by group members during this
period, with about 70% of the content related to NCR
land disputes. Other content related to Sarawak’s politics.
This data show that high interaction rates and active
uploads indicate active online conversations (Source
CrowdTangle Team [2021]) 32
Fig. 8.1 Four quadrants of radicalisation (Adapted
from El-Muhammady [2020]) 166
xi