The Swedish journalism professor Kent Asp said a few months ago that blogs have had almost no effect on the local political opinion. Regardless of how close to the truth such a statement is, there is enough signs from the other side of the pond that we can be convinced that blogs and social media have great potential to impact political views and elections. In Malaysia, the ruling party seems confident that blogs will help the party get re-elected.
CNN reports:
“Abdul Rahman Dahlan, secretary general of the United Malays National Organization party’s youth wing, said all those vying for national youth posts must have blogs to introduce themselves and their programs ahead of party elections in December.”
“All candidates must have blogs,” Abdul Rahman told The Associated Press. “If not, they are not qualified to be leaders.”
Footnote: In Sweden, blogs about politics are among the top categories. On Bloggportalen for example, there are close to 4,000 blogs listed in that category which makes it the third most popular, and 1,053 are listed in the sub-category “politicians”.
Tags: malaysia, politics, elections, malaysia, val, bloggar, politik. Ping.