Nottingham academics study the impact of social media in Malaysia

In a country which has an Internet penetration of more than 66%, and with the popularity of Facebook, Twitter,MySpace and social/community blogs growing exponentially, cyberspace control and monitoring may be seen as a counter-productive step to exclude rather than include the population.

The Department of Higher Education (Malaysia) has awarded a RM50,000 research grant under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) for a study on ‘Social Media and the Agency of Youth in Malaysia’ led by Joanne Lim from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures (SMLC). Through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with urban youth communities in both Peninsular and East Malaysia, the study will examine the use of social media as a space for independence from traditional structures and policies even while potentially preserving and supporting those same structures.

The study will also attempt to shed light on the politics of social media in Malaysia and the issues of youth as consumers, youth as representations and youth as creators, to offer an understanding of changing lives and frustrated desires, contradictions and dispersed sites of youth agency that are refracted into various degrees and forms. By comparing how young adults engage with social media based on their geographical location and social/political determinisms, it may be possible to observe different forces contend to fix their own meanings and (alternative) definitions in the construction of national-and-self identity.

In working closely with key experts in the field including co-researchers Zaharom Nain (SMLC) and Wang Lay Kim (School of Communication, Universiti Sains Malaysia), the findings of this study will be useful to consider social media as an essential tool in the project of social, cultural and political restructuring. The research project is scheduled to commence in August 2011.