Malaysia’s 13th General Election

Abstract

This article examines the political partisanship of the English language and the vernacular mainstream media during the campaign period of the 13th general election in Malaysia. The newspapers examined are Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, Sinar Harian, New Straits Times, The Star, China Press, Sin Chew Jit Poh, Nam Naidu and Nanban. The period of study is from 20 April 2013 (nomination day) until 5 May 2013 (polling day). The findings show that almost all the mainstream media were biased towards the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional, except for Sinar Harian. Chinese newspapers— China Press and Sin Chew Jit Poh—provided a slightly more balanced coverage of the government and opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat. The bias towards political parties in the ruling coalition is attributed to the ownership of mainstreams newspapers by political interests closely aligned with the current government. This has undermined the credibility of mainstream media in which circulation numbers have been declining in recent years.