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Article: Virtual democracy in Malaysia: `... the Internet has helped put press freedom on the front burner.' (International Journalism).
- Article from:
- Nieman Reports
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Harvard University, Nieman Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Malaysia is a democracy. We have freedom of speech, but no freedom after speech. There is freedom of movement, but no freedom of assembly. We have a plethora of publications--about a dozen or so newspapers in four different languages--but we don't have a free press.
Clearly, the government had a complete monopoly on the distribution of information until the emergence of the Internet. But while this technology has enabled us to finally break through the government's barriers, we are not near breaking its monopoly on power. The only advantage we have as online journalists over the traditional media in Malaysia is that our online publication Malaysiakini ...